Okay, here's my question about this whole NSA deal

[Aerows]

We can't find terrorists that plot the Boston bombing before they do it, despite being warned of how dangerous the one guy was *3* times in advance by Russia, and despite the fact that the FBI *had* tracked him, but let it go when he went to Caucasus and met with a radical Islamic terrorist.

We can find out, 2 days later, every damn thing on the planet about Edward Snowden, including his neighbor's opinions of him, that he barely has a GED and how many boxes he has in his garage, and he still skips town to Hong Kong.

Is it just me, or is everyone else thinking "these idiots at the NSA can't even hire qualified, educated people and we expect for that for all of the money they waste to catch a really bad guy"?

What the hell are they doing with all of the money they are throwing at contractors? Investigating what Uncle Bob ate at McDonald's for lunch but not bothering to actually do what the hell they claim they do? I'd prefer they catch terrorists, which they don't seem to be capable of doing instead of monitoring that Aunt Margaret ordered a pizza for the kids two nights ago.

[Rex]

1. Very good question. Doesn't help when the Director lies to Congress.

Makes me think they have no idea what is going on either. I think there is no real oversight, just a rubber stamp committee and NOW they are paying for that mistake.

[Aerows]

4. And then there is that

Which is a felony and what got Clinton impeached, but this guy who is in charge of this fiasco still has a job. And he's a Republican holdover from the Bush days, which also makes me wonder why in the hell I voted for Obama twice for the same idiots to still be in charge (and clearly aren't qualified to secure a little old lady crossing the street).

[NYC_SKP]

2. If our government would give us Heath Care, Education, Justice and a Clean Environment....

...then we wouldn't have enemies and we wouldn't need wars and the NSA.

That's the real tragedy of this, Aerows.

That it is all utterly unnecessary!

[Aerows]

6. It's all about

M-O-N-E-Y. And you can take it to the bank (pardon the pun) that none of this spying shit is for "safety". It's to siphon off tax dollars to overpaid, under-qualified spooks.

[Laelth]

17. I must respectfully disagree.

It's about oil. Japan has no oil. France has no oil. Germany has no oil. The U.K. has the North Sea, but even they are dependent on oil from the Middle East. Iran, on the other hand, has oil--a good chunk of the world's oil supply. Right now, they are selling it to the Chinese. Our allies need oil from the Middle East, and that's the main reason they have been pressuring us to get involved in Syria--to fight Iran, for Syria is Iran's proxy state. We are at war with Iran. We launched a cyber-attack against them, and they have launched cyber-attacks on us and our allies. We must stay involved in the Middle East.

General Smedley Butler explained to us that war is a racket and that it's always about American capitalists protecting their own economic interests, and there's some of that going on, to be sure. But President Obama, from what I can tell, has been fending off the dogs of war for some time--doing his best to delay and prevent us from getting involved. He can't resist any longer.

We may not like it, but all of Western Civilization is now dependent on oil, and we will fight to preserve Western Civilization. That, as I understand it, is the point of view of those who have convinced the President to take military action in Syria.

-Laelth

[Roselma]

3. NSA only tracks/spies on

electronic communications. There is an excellent possibility that the brothers in Boston made all their plans by talking face to face and that they bought supplies using cash. NSA would be unable to know what people say over the dinner table. And..I do agree that the vetting for top secret clearance is sorely lacking if this guy got through. Sheesh...he was a libertarian and got a security clearance. Think about that. An anti-government person got a top secret clearance in a government program involved in potential violations of civil liberties. Maybe this means that people who express anti-government ideas should not work in government and should not be permitted to work in government. Just a thought. As for Uncle Bob at McDonalds, maybe he was picked up on security cameras or used electronic methods to pay for his meal.

[Aerows]

5. Bullshit

The FBI was tracking him, and was warned three times about him. He obviously had a damn cellphone, but they can't find out anything whatsoever to prevent that.

But heaven forbid the person down the road order's pizza.

If they can spy on the American public to the degree that they are and still can't find a damn terrorist, waste the kind of money they waste hiring somebody with a GED when there are plenty of educated Americans that could have done a good job AND kept their damn mouths closed, then I can criticize the hell out of how incompetent they are.

They own this. They look inept and like a big fat waste of tax dollars.

Oh and:? " Maybe this means that people who express anti-government ideas should not work in government "

Yes, like every Republican does, and the guy that manages the entire outfit is a Republican.

[Roselma]

9. You seem to be making assumptions about the

relationship between the brothers - that they made their plans via electronic communications and that they used electronic funds to purchase their supplies. I know it sounds strange in today's world, but plenty of family members, especially those who live in very close proximity to actually meet with each other for dinner and talk. Also, there is this green foldy paper stuff, called money. You can take it to a cashier in a retail outlet and use it to pay for stuff you picked up in the aisle. To this day, I still talk with my family while sitting merely a yard or two away. We also work on crafts and stuff on the worktable in the basement. I haven't used electronic funds in nearly 4 years - no credit cards and no bank atm cards. This is mostly due to financial problems, but still, people do not exclusively use atm cards and credit cards. When you express that NSA should have been involved here, you miss the point that NSA monitors electronic communications.

It would make sense for government to not hire and give top secret clearances to people who dislike their government and feel that their government is encroaching on civil liberties.

[Aerows]

10. What are you defending here?

And why? Do you actually believe that the NSA has shown a stunning level of competence and that several high body count tragedies HAVEN'T occurred in the last couple of months?

It's more than Snowden. It's a whole system that looks like it's run by idiots and needs to have some major budget cuts, some firings and a healthy dose of oversight.

[Roselma]

13. It appeared that you thought that NSA was in

the business of doing something it has no capability to do based upon your statement about the Boston bombers. They do NOT monitor human face to face discussions and do not follow people spending cash. Just wanted to bring you back to earth. Not a fan of sweeping dragnets looking for signals. Don't agree with you on the need for budget cuts, but do agree on firings of those who cannot be trusted and do agree with you on oversight.

[DevonRex]

7. The standard for a FISA warrant for US citizens and green card holders

Is really, really high. The author of this piece seems to think that because Russia thought Tamerlan had become radicalized, that would have been sufficient "evidence" for the FISA court to grant a warrant. Problem is, Russia never provided any evidence at all, just warnings without any evidence to back it up. They court is not going to say, "Oh, well, as long as Russia says so, fine."

http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/why-the-fbi-white-house-will-face-hard-questions-about-their-boston-bombing-interviews/#ixzz2W95mM4jB
"There’s a lot of information there that will get sorted through, like the indication of databases kept by the government for the purposes of data mining green-card holders (and American citizens?). But the ultimate fight between the Hill and the FBI, or perhaps the GOP and the White House, will hinge on how and why the FBI decided to conclude from their searches that Tamerlan wasn’t connected to international terrorism.

Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act, in order to unlock powerful surveillance and investigative tools the FBI must show probable cause that an individual is engaged in international terrorist acts on behalf of a terrorist group. The foreign government seemed to believe that Tamerlan was. Did they supply sufficient evidence for the FBI to meet a FISA court judge’s standard of probable cause? Was the FBI going the extra mile to meet the probable-cause test?

Initially it doesn’t look good for the FBI. The definition under FISA of international terrorist acts is that they must:

… transcend national boundaries, in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the person they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which the perpetrators operate or seek asylum.

The classic example, experts say, of operating internationally is training in an al-Qaeda camp in the Pakistani hinterlands. To be sure, to get a FISA warrant the standard is higher for American citizens and green-card holders (like Tamerlan) — the FBI has to show the suspect is knowingly engaging in international terrorism or preparing for it on behalf of a terrorist group. If the suspect isn’t a citizen or green-card holder, then you just have to show the suspect is a member of terrorist group.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/why-the-fbi-white-house-will-face-hard-questions-about-their-boston-bombing-interviews/#ixzz2WDqj90sN

[Aerows]

8. It doesn't look good for either the NSA or the FBI

It certainly doesn't look good that there are secret warrants for all of Verizon's customer base, but they can't find a terrorist with a cellphone, and a guy with a GED is put in charge of a position he ultimately ends up having no business being in because he can't keep his mouth shut.

All of that points to a distinct lack of judgment in both agencies, and it also points out that they are getting paid far too much money for they job they are doing. It's time for a house-cleaning, some budget cuts and some honest to goodness oversight on BOTH agencies. What has happened in the past clearly isn't working. We've had several high body count tragedies to occur while they are on watch, yet they are keeping all of this data.

Either they are incompetent, or the entire reason for tracking all of this data has nothing to do with actually preventing tragedies and more to do with fat contracts and political favors. I'll leave you to decide which you think it is or if it's just plain both.

[DevonRex]

11. This comes down to some facts most haven't discussed yet.

As far as phone records go, they have all the data - dates, numbers, times, duration of calls, from (I'm pretty sure) the major carriers, all stored in one or two places. There's a reason for this. The phone companies have all that data, stored in separate corporate facilities, unencrypted, unclassified, vulnerable to hacking and changing or destroying.

So, you see where I'm going with this? Instead of having it vulnerable to phone company employees or hackers or nature or storage issues, the government receives it, encrypts it, classifies it. No names are attached. They can run programs looking for patterns of known terrorist organizations' communications overseas. If a citizen or green card holder is caught up in that, they have to go the extra mile and prove their need for the warrant. Listening IN can't retroactively prove the need to have gotten it to begin with.they have to prove the citizen is participating in terrorism or preparing for a terrorist act before even getting the warrant to look at the data.

In other words, Tamerlan wasn't doing anything online that proved it. They can get online activity that proves people are planning to blow things up. But they cannot get phone data without first showing proof of terrorist activity.

I'm not sure about the difference in the law but the subway bomber was caught because he emailed an buddy overseas and asked about the recipe for his bomb. Couldn't remember the ratios. That's how they got him.

[KurtNYC]

12. We love to believe that technology is the answer for everything

We like to believe that the atom bombs won the war against Japan. They didn't.

Some seem to believe that 9/11 was a total surprise yet the hijackers were under surveillance for months prior, red flags were raised repeatedly by their behavior, and Bush got a daily briefing outlining pretty much exactly what happened on 9/11/01 thirty-six days prior to 9/11. The intelligence agencies did their job in 2001. The ball was dropped elsewhere. Perhaps the same is true for Boston (I haven't looked closely at it).

The data center in Utah is designed to hold 72 trillion DVDs worth of information. If that storage capacity costs even 50-cents per then that is 36 trillion dollars. A pretty big bet on technology at a time when budgets are tight.

So we spend more and more on technology but it is unclear whether the government ever evaluates cost versus benefit and more importantly, whether the actual human failings are corrected.

[Laelth]

14. This is not about terrorists any more.

It's about cyberwarfare. Or, so this essay suggests: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/

-Laelth

[magellan]

15. Yep, it's a mystery

The Boston Bombers weren't the sharpest tools in the box, and yet, aside from a warning from the Russians about the elder brother, they managed to elude detection by our great spy apparatus rather easily. All the metadata, social network and electronic money tracking being done on everyone, and these two flew right under the radar using the simplest means.

Does the US government think more sophisticated terrorists aren't at least as clever? Sure, they might catch some. The real idiots who would answer the question at the airport check-in with "I assure you, I packed the explosive device myself."

If even the Brothers Tsarnaev could avoid detection, so could those intent on even more serious attacks. Meaning there's no justification for vacuuming up everyone's personal info...not one that's anti-terrorism related, anyway.

[treestar]

16. We only hear about things that go wrong

It might and probably does work most of the time. But saying they didn't catch the Boston Bombers means the whole thing is useless is like refusing to fly because there are plane crashes or refusing to use a car because you could get killed in that too.

And the ironic thing is those hints came from Russia, which you can bet doesn't have any problem with spying of all kinds, and no respect for privacy or search and seizure, rights and warrants, etc.