<story><title>Paris Attacks Plot Was Hatched in Plain Sight</title><url>http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attacks-plot-was-hatched-in-plain-sight-1448587309</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aresant</author><text>You make a good top level point that I think most would agree with - successful terror plots degrade our freedom because we fearfululy grant our government more power.&lt;p&gt;But to broadly call spying apparatus ineffective and incompetent weakens your argument.&lt;p&gt;There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone, surely many more we will never know about.(1)&lt;p&gt;There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.&lt;p&gt;The complexity in the discussion is that it clearly doesn&amp;#x27;t work 100% of the time and comes at a significant cost&lt;p&gt;But this isn&amp;#x27;t a black and white issue, we are in the grey.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist_plots_in_the_United_States_post-9&amp;#x2F;11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mgo</author><text>Yet this whole event is being used as a catalyst for further degradation of freedom and encryption.&lt;p&gt;How can we take the powers above seriously when they can&amp;#x27;t even catch a fairly large network of terrorists scheming over the clearnet?&lt;p&gt;This is a lesson in the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the spying apparatus of the free world.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve given up so much already for no benefit, and whenever they fail it&amp;#x27;s never because they were bad at their job, they just didn&amp;#x27;t have enough power or money to do their job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sjm-lbm</author><text>The real complexity of the discussion comes from the unknown number of attacks that would be prevented with very mild pre-9&amp;#x2F;11 security measures.&lt;p&gt;Earlier this year, I read &lt;i&gt;The Looming Towers&lt;/i&gt;, an overview of various historical factors that led to the 9&amp;#x2F;11 attacks. Its focus is really more on the origins on Islamic extremism, not logistical planning of the 9&amp;#x2F;11 attacks, but it did cover several aspects of 9&amp;#x2F;11 specifically that were very interesting. Importantly, the FBI and CIA - between them - had enough information to stop the attacks but did not collaborate well enough, mostly due to the differing goals between the CIA and the FBI. To the CIA, a potential terrorist is an &lt;i&gt;asset&lt;/i&gt; - they hope that person, if left on the street, will attempt to contact someone higher up in (say) al Qaeda and therefore generate more data for the agency. To the FBI, such a person is a &lt;i&gt;suspect&lt;/i&gt;, and really needs to be taken off the street as soon as enough evidence has been gathered to build a criminal case against him. During the summer of 2001, the FBI was blocked form getting the full CIA info on several important 9&amp;#x2F;11 figures because the CIA knew they&amp;#x27;d be immediately arrested with that information.&lt;p&gt;(that is, of course, a broad overview, but the main point is more or less correct)&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to see so many people embracing their lack of freedom as a security blanket. We don&amp;#x27;t need to use terror to grant our governments more control over our lives, we need just need to hold those who claim to be keeping us safe accountable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Paris Attacks Plot Was Hatched in Plain Sight</title><url>http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attacks-plot-was-hatched-in-plain-sight-1448587309</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aresant</author><text>You make a good top level point that I think most would agree with - successful terror plots degrade our freedom because we fearfululy grant our government more power.&lt;p&gt;But to broadly call spying apparatus ineffective and incompetent weakens your argument.&lt;p&gt;There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone, surely many more we will never know about.(1)&lt;p&gt;There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.&lt;p&gt;The complexity in the discussion is that it clearly doesn&amp;#x27;t work 100% of the time and comes at a significant cost&lt;p&gt;But this isn&amp;#x27;t a black and white issue, we are in the grey.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist_plots_in_the_United_States_post-9&amp;#x2F;11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mgo</author><text>Yet this whole event is being used as a catalyst for further degradation of freedom and encryption.&lt;p&gt;How can we take the powers above seriously when they can&amp;#x27;t even catch a fairly large network of terrorists scheming over the clearnet?&lt;p&gt;This is a lesson in the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the spying apparatus of the free world.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve given up so much already for no benefit, and whenever they fail it&amp;#x27;s never because they were bad at their job, they just didn&amp;#x27;t have enough power or money to do their job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kefs</author><text>The Talk section of the Wiki article lists the many problems with that list.. You really should stop citing it.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Talk:List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist_plots_in_the_United_States_post-9&amp;#x2F;11#Incredibly_biased_title_and_premise&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Talk:List_of_unsuccessful_terr...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>