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Your whole assumption is based on the fact that they want to find terrorists when I would put forward that their mission is actually to grow the institutional p
by ianstallings 13y ago
Your whole assumption is based on the fact that they want to find terrorists when I would put forward that their mission is actually to grow the institutional power. Budget share, it's what drives DC.
- tptacek 13y agoI'm sure there's a bunch of non-falsifiable fuzzy arguments you could substitute for this one. How about, "you assume they're looking for terrorists, but really they just don't like the texture of pressure-braised chicken."
- ianstallings 13y agoEh maybe so. But I've was raised in DC and worked for government many times and my family is in the intelligence industry so it's my own conclusion. I bet many in DC would agree with me.
- Locke1689 13y agoNope, sounds stupid to me and my neighbors were NSA agents.
- ianstallings 13y agoOkay then. I appreciate your input.
- darkarmani 13y agoI'm sure your neighbors told you all about the work they do at the NSA.
- jbooth 13y agoI'm really having no problem seeing the situation as portrayed unfolding in a large bureaucracy. 1) Some dude adds pressure cooker to the dumb keywords list that's never found a valid lead, right after the only incidence in history of a pressure cooker being used as an implement of irregular warfare. (Reactive, CYA, ineffective, typical) 2) Whether they send out FBI trucks to people who came up on the filters: I agree that it's stupid. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't do it. How does "Investigated 46,000 terror leads last year" sound on the executive report? It's not a matter of 'how could they be so smart and so dumb at the same time'. It's different people being smart and dumb.