It's Not Whether NSA Surveillance Helped Stop Any Plots, But Whether Or Not It Needed To Spy On Everyone To Do So

from the get-it-straight dept

Last week, NSA boss Keith Alexander insisted that the various NSA surveillance programs had stopped "dozens" of terrorist attacks. This apparently confused Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall -- both on the Senate Intelligence Committee and privy to any such reports -- who claimed that they'd seen no such evidence. Over the weekend, the NSA released no actual evidence, but rather just reiterated the claim that it had stopped "dozens of potential terror plots" in "more than 20 countries."

Note, by the way, the use of the word "potential." That gives the NSA an awful lot of wiggle room, and we've seen before that when you give the NSA wiggle room around some language choices, they take it.

But, the bigger issue is that without presenting any actual evidence on these situations, it's impossible to know whether or not the NSA really needed this massive data collection to stop those "potential" plots. As we've already seen, in the one case where the NSA has said the programs were useful, it quickly became clear that they were not necessary, and traditional policework actually did the bulk of the effort in identifying the plot.

In the same release, the NSA also said that it had only "checked" 300 phone numbers last year against that giant database of every phone call that it collects. They released this tidbit of info to try to calm people's fears that the program wasn't targeting them. But, it seems like this datapoint completely works in the other direction. If the NSA only needs to check 300 phone numbers, no way should it have every phone call made by everyone in its database. Three hundred is a small enough number that it's clearly not unduly burdensome to walk their lawyers down to court and show why each and every one of those numbers matters, and then go from there.

Filed Under: evidence, nsa, nsa surveillance, terrorist plots

FBI Continues To Foil Its Own Devised Terrorist Plots

from the sarcastic-golf-clap dept

It seems there's a new pattern showing itself every time I read a news report in which the FBI proudly announces it foiled a terrorist plot. That pattern goes something like this: hear that a huge explosion was averted and lives were saved, find out the plotter was an American citizen, find out he was under investigation by the FBI for several years, and then finally find out that it was the FBI that egged on the suspect and built his "bomb" for him. In other words, the only way these things could become less impressive is if the FBI actually decided to quit finding these loner folks to urge into violence and just built their own physical straw man to parade in front of the cameras.

This whole game of pretend law enforcement showed up at my doorstep this weekend, when the FBI announced yet another arrest of a potential terrorist, this time an 18 year old suburbanite whom the FBI (you guessed it) encouraged to try to bomb a downtown bar in Chicago.

Adel Daoud, 18, was arrested following a months-long FBI undercover investigation. He was taken into custody after he parked a Jeep Cherokee in front of the bar Friday night and walked into a nearby alley where he tried to detonate the device, court documents allege.

The bomb, which was inert and had been constructed by FBI technicians, didn't explode, according to federal authorities.

Oddly, the article notes that Daoud allegedly gave the FBI more than two dozen high profile Chicago targets to 'splode, but decided eventually on this unnamed bar instead, perhaps because they had, like, totally taken his fake ID that one time. Actually, I just made that up because I can't think of a single reason why a supposed terrorist would settle on a drinkery as their target.

Now, it is true that Daoud professed his wish to participate in jihad. It is true that he attempted to set off this pseudo bomb. He does indeed sound like a disturbed kid that needs to be dealt with in some fashion. But would he have participated in any of this without the urging of the FBI?

Perhaps more importantly, is foiling their own plots the best use of law enforcement in Chicago, a city that appears to be engaged in a concerted effort to have the most murders ever in a calendar year?

Filed Under: chicago, entrapment, fbi, terrorism, terrorist plots