<story><title>The Whole Haystack: The N.S.A. claims it needs access to all our phone records</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CHY872</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not saying your conclusion isn&amp;#x27;t wrong, but your argument probably is - largely because there are many costs of terrorism beyond simply loss of life - it&amp;#x27;s an incredibly efficient way to disrupt a nation.&lt;p&gt;For example, some estimates of the cost of 9&amp;#x2F;11 (I think including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan) suggest that each American is out to the tune of $10,000 [0]. If the NSA were able to prevent one 9&amp;#x2F;11 style event, they&amp;#x27;d in one step justify their budget for 300 years (if you ignore Iraq and Afghanistan, it goes down to 75 years, but in many ways at least Afghanistan was very much caused by 9&amp;#x2F;11).&lt;p&gt;[0] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;sept-11-rec...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>burke</author><text>Further, even assuming that number is correct, how many people do you figure die in the average successful terrorist plot? Let&amp;#x27;s say 100 as a high average.&lt;p&gt;That means 300,000,000 Americans (and billions of foreigners) are having their rights violated and wallets emptied via taxation every day to save 5400 lives over the course of 14 years.&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, it&amp;#x27;s 55% more likely than getting struck by lightning, but...</text></item><item><author>jobu</author><text>The NSA keeps using this &amp;quot;54 terror plots thwarted&amp;quot; rhetoric, but there has never been any information released to back up that claim.&lt;p&gt;From Sen. Patrick Leahy, after reading the full classified list:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;“We&amp;#x27;ve heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted” by the two programs, Leahy told Alexander at the Judiciary Committee hearing this month. “That&amp;#x27;s plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to members of Congress, we get it in statements. These weren&amp;#x27;t all plots and they weren&amp;#x27;t all thwarted. The American people are getting left with the inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs.”&lt;/i&gt;  
(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.propublica.org&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;claim-on-attacks-thwarted-...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;it&amp;#x27;s an incredibly efficient way to disrupt a nation&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;As other commenters pointed out, it&amp;#x27;s only efficient at disrupting a nation if the nation itself decides to disrupt itself.&lt;p&gt;The right way to react to a terrorist attack is to &lt;i&gt;ignore it&lt;/i&gt;. Simple as that. You chase the perpetrators like ordinary members of an organized crime group. Anything above that is achieving the terrorists&amp;#x27; plan.&lt;p&gt;All the money America spends on &amp;quot;War on Terror&amp;quot;, including NSA, is actually &lt;i&gt;the cost&lt;/i&gt; of 9&amp;#x2F;11. If the US wanted to really effectively prevent further terrorist attacks, it would &lt;i&gt;defund&lt;/i&gt; the NSA. Right now all that counterterrorism measures are only &lt;i&gt;actively inviting&lt;/i&gt; further attacks - everyone can see that it takes only a bunch of civilian casualties to make the nation go completely nuts and drive itself to destruction.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Whole Haystack: The N.S.A. claims it needs access to all our phone records</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CHY872</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not saying your conclusion isn&amp;#x27;t wrong, but your argument probably is - largely because there are many costs of terrorism beyond simply loss of life - it&amp;#x27;s an incredibly efficient way to disrupt a nation.&lt;p&gt;For example, some estimates of the cost of 9&amp;#x2F;11 (I think including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan) suggest that each American is out to the tune of $10,000 [0]. If the NSA were able to prevent one 9&amp;#x2F;11 style event, they&amp;#x27;d in one step justify their budget for 300 years (if you ignore Iraq and Afghanistan, it goes down to 75 years, but in many ways at least Afghanistan was very much caused by 9&amp;#x2F;11).&lt;p&gt;[0] - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;sept-11-rec...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>burke</author><text>Further, even assuming that number is correct, how many people do you figure die in the average successful terrorist plot? Let&amp;#x27;s say 100 as a high average.&lt;p&gt;That means 300,000,000 Americans (and billions of foreigners) are having their rights violated and wallets emptied via taxation every day to save 5400 lives over the course of 14 years.&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, it&amp;#x27;s 55% more likely than getting struck by lightning, but...</text></item><item><author>jobu</author><text>The NSA keeps using this &amp;quot;54 terror plots thwarted&amp;quot; rhetoric, but there has never been any information released to back up that claim.&lt;p&gt;From Sen. Patrick Leahy, after reading the full classified list:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;“We&amp;#x27;ve heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted” by the two programs, Leahy told Alexander at the Judiciary Committee hearing this month. “That&amp;#x27;s plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to members of Congress, we get it in statements. These weren&amp;#x27;t all plots and they weren&amp;#x27;t all thwarted. The American people are getting left with the inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs.”&lt;/i&gt;  
(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.propublica.org&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;claim-on-attacks-thwarted-...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t really blame the terrorists for the response. Spain, France, Norway and Germany have all dealt with terrorism over the last decades and not a single one of them has invaded other countries in response to such an attack.&lt;p&gt;And to say that Afghanistan was caused by 9&amp;#x2F;11 is a total reversal of what actually happened, 9&amp;#x2F;11 happened because of CIA involvement in Afghanistan.</text></comment>