‘Reined-In’ N.S.A. Still Collected 151M Phone Records in 2016

Re:‘Reined-In’ N.S.A. Still Collected 151M Phone Records in ... by olivermarks on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @11:54PM (#14252916)

"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/

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Re:‘Reined-In’ N.S.A. Still Collected 151M Phone Records in ... by cryptarch on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @02:58AM (#14253600)

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...

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