Eh, this is true but not really relevant to the claim here.

If the FBI had all this information and didn't act on it, then he e.g. went into a tower and murdered dozens of people in the street, there is not going to be a substantial number of people saying "oh well ya know they didn't have a basis to intervene when they were first informed of his 1) probably-illegal firearms, 2) extreme violent views and 3) growing stockpile of explosives."

Lots of Americans don't understand legal due process. Especially the ones who watch hyper-partisan news.

The comment seemed to be about when it was right to ignore Constitutional Rights, giving two examples of people noisily pushing for that. There will always be people noisily complaining because that's what we amplify these days.

I personally don't think there's enough public consultation on rights. For some reason America relies on an increasingly political supreme court to set those boundaries rather than what The People actually want.

And all of this is entirely impossible to derive from online conduct because it's just wall-to-wall strife, disagreement and suffering. A system continuously telling us to be angry with other people, rather than how to enjoy these short, little lives we have. Weird if you ask me.

The comment did not say that. The comment said that people would have perceived it as certain evidence of an impending attack and a clear security failure.

All of that is absolutely, obviously true.

Yes, I agreed. People would have perceived it as a colossal security failure. They would have cited it as a reason for gun and explosive control. They would have done and said a lot of things because there are a lot of people who can think and say things. There are people who will think the opposite too. And some jousting off in every other direction.

My original point got a little lost by my second post. That there are angry people shouting about something doesn't mean they're right. Being loud shouldn't earn you opinion being rebroadcast, but that's exactly what today's social media does. And it's what the traditional media did before it. Sell engagement through outrage.

If we want to have qualitative conversations about what homeland security really looks like to stop an attack like the one here —that nobody is even suggesting was planned— I'm not sure people will be so "absolutely, obviously" on one side. Only once you have those conversations can you reasonably barter with the limits of rights.

I’m sure the real explanation is that there are probably a lot of people with weapon caches or doing other really questionable stuff but very few of them have intent to harm and the small remaining number of people who have that intent are never actually going to do anything and may not yet violate any laws.

As it always is, people are always on some spectrum for an activity.