General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How much are you willing to compromise with the NSA on national security? [View all]treestar
(82,383 posts)The point was to make some attempt to head off attacks. Recent terrorists are willing to kill themselves as part of the attack, so worrying about prosecuting them isn't a good use of time.
The best there was before 911 was two hijackers known to have been at an Al Qaeda safe house. It's possible the demand that the government discover and prevent terrorist attacks is quite unreasonable, but that appears to be the demand present day Americans make of their government.
In which case, most of them should be fine with these databases as data mining was thought to be a tool. Of course there is old fashioned spying which brought the two hijackers names out in any event. And had they been American citizens, I guess there are many on DU saying just too bad, no spying on Americans, therefore, if the terrorist is an American too bad, we just deal with the attack after it happens.