4 ms·

> happening behind closed, classified doors My friend who works in the intelligence community assures me that if we only knew the kinds of bad guys they are se

> happening behind closed, classified doors My friend who works in the intelligence community assures me that if we only knew the kinds of bad guys they are secretly protecting us from (e.g. another Boston Marathon bombing every week) we'd be thankful. I don't believe him. The gov't loves to trot out every single foiled terrorist as a victory of their systems. The gov't isn't quietly foiling terrorist attacks left while it's just too humble to say so. Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret?

sigzero 13y ago
You would be thankful but not in the way he thinks. There should still be an open conversation about tactics.
coldtea 13y ago
Of course he would say that. It makes his job important and justifies increased budgets. I don't believe such BS either.
hvs 13y ago
Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
lukifer 13y ago
> Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret? There absolutely would be: SIGINT 101 is that you don't reveal your information gathering abilities, lest your opponnent move to new communications channels. In WW2, the Allies often learned of attacks due to code-breaking, and chose not to reveal them, so as to preserve the long-term strategic value of future intel. (The wartime morality of letting 1,000 die today to ostensibly save 10,000 tomorrow is left as an exercise for the reader.) I do give our agencies the benefit of the doubt, that there are probably are real threats, and they are probably acting in good faith. But I still find the current scope of spying and databasing to be dangerous, un-American, and inhuman. Terrorism, as horrible as it is, will always be an improbable statistical outlier. But when state power slides into tyranny, it is pervasive, ongoing, and difficult to undo. Preventing the latter should be our highest priority, or we have failed to learn from history. Something tells me it's a lesson we'll be learning the hard way.

sigzero 13y ago

You would be thankful but not in the way he thinks. There should still be an open conversation about tactics.

coldtea 13y ago

Of course he would say that. It makes his job important and justifies increased budgets. I don't believe such BS either.

hvs 13y ago

Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.

lukifer 13y ago

> Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret? There absolutely would be: SIGINT 101 is that you don't reveal your information gathering abilities, lest your opponnent move to new communications channels. In WW2, the Allies often learned of attacks due to code-breaking, and chose not to reveal them, so as to preserve the long-term strategic value of future intel. (The wartime morality of letting 1,000 die today to ostensibly save 10,000 tomorrow is left as an exercise for the reader.) I do give our agencies the benefit of the doubt, that there are probably are real threats, and they are probably acting in good faith. But I still find the current scope of spying and databasing to be dangerous, un-American, and inhuman. Terrorism, as horrible as it is, will always be an improbable statistical outlier. But when state power slides into tyranny, it is pervasive, ongoing, and difficult to undo. Preventing the latter should be our highest priority, or we have failed to learn from history. Something tells me it's a lesson we'll be learning the hard way.