> 42 arrested and convicted suspects

I may be mistaken, but I don't believe the article said anything about convictions. The 42 "terrorism suspects" had their call records etc. sent to the NSA under court order. There isn't even mention of a trial. Was there due process? Was they considered innocent after reading the call record data? We don't know anything other than the NSA claims some people were "terrorist suspects", the FISA court granted a warrant, and phone records were collected.

> who were likely to commit violent acts at some point

That's an unwarranted assumption. All we know is some people were labeled a "terrorist suspect". Even if the investigation was for a violent act, they are suspects; no guilt has been established.

A larger problem is your assumption that "terrorism" implies "likely to commit violent acts". That hasn't been true for some time. Drug trafficking[1] and the Occupy protests[2] were both "terrorism" according to the FBI. The term "terrorism" was diluted down to meaning "crime some people find frightening". The TLAs tend to use it now mostly for funding/budget purposes, as yet another "think of children!".

[1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/internation...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-str...

"The U.S. government has prosecuted 796 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never even got close to committing an act of violence." https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/

Imagine they would've each killed 50 citizens on average. I think that's a very high estimate. I think 5/terrorist would be high, but lets pad the estimates.

That's 40.000 deaths since 9/11. Was it worth it?

Was that worth harming your culture, making your country more hostile to vistors and citizens alike, while spending (very roughly) $660.000.000.000[0] on "counter-terrorism"?

Couldn't that money have been used more effectively, for instance on cancer research or programs to reduce obesity?

40k deaths over 16 years is nothing. It's how many Americans kill themselves in a year, while orders of magnitude more Americans die of heart failure, diabetes and cancer.

And that's a very high estimate of the additional deaths-by-terrorist that might have potentially been prevented, maybe.

[0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-o...

> who were likely to commit violent acts at some point

Wow. Given what happened with MLK and others at the time, why are we so willing to trust these groups with such power? The court system exists for a reason.

Because we are afraid of terrorists.

* Looks at email from representative asking if we should step up bombing in Syria.

Yet we keep creating them.

It's arguable that it would be a reasonable trade-off; how ever there's no evidence any or all of these 42 suspects were ever arrested, let alone convicted. As you said: who knows.

I've actually defended the NSA a lot as it seems incredibly naive to leave that information sitting on the table so no sane government would do so given the probability that their enemies could grab similar information.

But isn't your trade-off kinda weird? Not that it's bad to catch 40 terrorists, but how many terrorists generate 3 million different phone calls in a year even in their extended network?

Also, they likely provided intelligence that led back to overseas cells and organizations, which the NSA is supposed to target but which we can't exactly prosecute.

It would be a huge blindspot if we couldn't follow the network graph of an organization based abroad because they route comms through the US.

"Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety."

"Likely to commit crimes" is not just grounds, especially under the US constitution, to remove a citizen's constitutional rights.

'What signify a few lives lost in a century? The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.'

Just so you are aware, clever tyrants always have taken liberties from their subjects in the name of moral righteousness.

The people who established the concept of unalienable constitutional rights here in America were accustomed to the idea that a few lives lost lost in the process of was unavoidable.

> "Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety."

Please stop (mis)qouting this. It means almost the exact opposite of the point people tend to try to make with it.

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...

If I'm reading this right, the context still says that one should not give up their rights in exchange for safety. If it was strictly pro defense, he would've taken the money and given up on governance.

Having tax authority is essential for the government, and it shouldn't give it up for the sake of temporary defence money; privacy is essential to citizens, and shouldn't be given up for temporary protection from terrorists.

Prescriptivist linguistics is pretty silly though -- words mean what people use them fo

The above cited manipulation in the NPR article on Franklin's quote is frustrating. I used to listen to NPR 10 years ago, but today I tend to tune out[1]. Yes Franklin said a quote in a context, it does not mean he did not mean what he said. The quote is about giving up essential liberties to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. That's virtually the exact quote. If he wanted to say something that wasnt about giving up liberties for safety then he could have said that, instead, but he didnt do that.

1-stories glorifying transgender 9-year-olds is the type of thing that is now somehow standard on NPR: www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518206326/transgender-boy-finds-his-bros-and-himself-at-camp

I don't want the NSA accessing data like this without a warrant, but their job needs to get done somehow and by someone. Ideally with a lot more oversight, but calls to outright disband the organization are shortsighted.

I'm also thinking long-long term. Terrorism isn't a seriously considerable risk to an individual American, but what about in 50 or 100 years? What if in the distant future, terrorist groups or weird death cults like Aum Shinrikyo are able to more easily develop or obtain biological or chemical weapons that can dissipate into a large urban area quickly? What if multiple attacks like that start to occur? We need to have some kind of counter to that.

In terms of pure risk vs. reward trade-off, the current state of affairs isn't really worth it, but it's not hard to envision a future world where terrorism is truly a constant and valid fear in a first world country. That future hypothetical doesn't justify anything NSA does right now, no, but I think it (along with various threats from competing superpowers) does justify the need for some implementation of a security agency and intelligence community in every modern country.

Also, you're kind of mixing up different quotes that aren't really related to the specific issue.

In terms of risk, you have a greater chance of being killed by lightning, drowning in the tub, being buried alive, [1] killed by cows, hot tap water, falling down the stairs, dogs, vending machines, bees, texing and driving, swing sets, wind, football, roller coasters, lawn mowers, your bed, [2] being crushed by furniture, or being shot by a toddler.

But by all means, let's spend trillions of dollars (not being hyperbolic here), and take away everyone's constitutional rights.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/you-re-more-likely-die-c... [2] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/you-re-more-likely-die-c...

The NBC article gets its data from a CATO institute report.[1] In it, they touch upon the problem with extrapolating from previous data: they note that 9/11 accounted for 98% of all foreign terrorist fatalities in the past 40 years. Terror attacks obey a power law where extremely rare events account for most of the deaths. Considering the weaponry that exists today, it's fortunate we haven't had anything worse than 9/11.

Moreover, you're not accounting for the US response to terror attacks. I think we can both agree that the reaction to 9/11 was far more harmful than the attack itself. So if you want to reduce total harm, reducing the likelihood of terror attacks seems like a good idea. If that means collecting 0.1% of phone records and (under judicial oversight) occasionally checking if foreign terrorists are in those call logs... well I'm willing to make that trade-off.

1. https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_...

Thought crime (goes against the wishes of those in power) to say it but its true: reign in the military and CIA, stop bombing and meddling in other countries, close the borders and use the budget to fund a mission to Proxima Centauri.

Anyways did you know 3 buildingd in NYC fells on 9/11? Look into that.

A future with some ominous terrorist threat is not a justification for now or then. The NSA should never violate the Constitution ever. Especially when ordered not to do so. I think the quotes are both entirely relevant. You are suggesting trade-offs, the quotes say it is never worth it.

> I'm also thinking long-long term. Terrorism isn't a seriously considerable risk to an individual American, but what about in 50 or 100 years? What if in the distant future, terrorist groups or weird death cults like Aum Shinrikyo are able to more easily develop or obtain biological or chemical weapons that can dissipate into a large urban area quickly?

All the more reason to stop with band-aid solutions like spying on the entire world, and engage in real efforts to bring education, infrastructure, and stability to the regions most prone to creating terrorists.

The NSA is part of a broader picture of US military and intelligence agencies that involves selling arms without oversight, overthrowing democratically elected governments, funding rebel groups that later become terrorists, congressionally unauthorized military action, a network of unscrupulous military contractors like Blackwater and Dyncorp, relationships with brutal regimes like Saudi Arabia, and political fear-mongering and propaganda in the US and abroad to afford a thin veil of legitimacy to these activities.

You are scared of terrorism, and so is the other side. As one small example of many, did you know that during the "Shock and Awe" phase of the US invasion of Iraq, the Oxford Research Group estimates there were over 6,000 civilian deaths? [1] That's more than on 9/11 itself, and the implication of terrorism is literally in the name "Shock and Awe" as well as in the stated definition of this military doctrine:

"Rapid Dominance would seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events so that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at tactical and strategic levels" [2]

[1] https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/pdf/a_dossi...

[2] http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Ullman_Shock.pdf

This is a great post that contains the type of information we should be educating the US population about. That is unfortunately not happening, though.

Thanks. I should clarify to that "Shock and Awe" is another name for the "Rapid Dominance" doctrine mentioned in that quote, in case anyone didn't catch that.

I very often push back against those who spread incorrect information and conspiracy theories regarding the IC, all countries have intelligence agencies and engage in SIGINT collection. Ours should be doing the best work possible. However, there are two issues with your post:

1. The NSA does a whole lot more than monitoring suspected terrorists, even if it a hot topic right now, that is a strange point to bring up.

2. I have not read the specifics on this case yet (media seems to still like using "IC is the boogeyman!" slant), but more generally, it is important for there to be a hard line against domestic surveillance of US Persons versus standard foreign intelligence collection. Warrantless domestic collection would be too easy to abuse and more importantly may raise constitutional issues.

I am unsure about this case though, probably will need to dig through source material. The linked article is unclear on if this data is minimized (anonymized) or not, as my understanding is that US Person information must be anonymized under all normal circumstances (and additionally USPI cannot be directly queried without a warrant). Very curious to understand what is actually happening.