How many al Qaeda have they captured from their "wiretapping"?

[kentuck]

And did they arrest those in this country at the other end of the phone call? If they have listened in to thousands, perhaps millions of calls, surely they have caught at least one person? Does anyone know what they have reaped in the number of arrests from this circumventing of the law? Surely there are some?

[Justitia]

1. NONE I've heard of, but they snared some vicious Quakers! -eom

[ClayZ]

2. And some VEGANS! It's hard work!

[MindPilot]

3. Questions like that

embolden the enemy and demoralize our troops. Why do you hate America?

There have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since the wiretapping begin. Clearly the policy is working. stay the course. :sarcasm:

[kurth]

4. Probably ZERO

The only fish they caught was some crazy nut who wanted to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. 0.

But I'll bet lots of other folks have been listened to in the meantime.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. This requires two giant leaps of faith

1. That the NSA is actually capable of doing anything.

2. That they would know who to wire tap and what to listen for.

[pbear81]

9. who to wire tap

They get info (eg, phone numbers) from captures abroad

They monitor the foreign numbers

When a US number is contacted from one of the monitored numbers, they intercept the call - "hot pursuit"

Question: If you were in charge of preventing the next terror attack here at home, would you intercept such calls, or would you ignore them? The call is happening in real time, hence no chance for warrant.
By the way, hot pursuit has always been legit grounds for warrantless search (the constitution protects us from "unreasonable" search).

[kentuck]

11. In such a circumstance, do they not have 72 hours ?

to get a warrant? Or are they still in "hot pursuit" after 72 hours? Sounds like an OJ chase?

[pbear81]

14. if the orginal intercept

turns up something that indicates a US person is actively plotting against the US, and further surveillance is prudent, that's when they'd go for a warrant. this process involves multiple lawyers and lots of paperwork, eating up days or weeks.

[kentuck]

15. Where did you hear that BS ?

On Rush Limbaugh??

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. After all of this, you actually believe that they are capable

of a legitimate "hot pursuit"? On what past history of accomplishment do you base your faith that those cubical dwellers would ever be in "hot pursuit" of anything but another donut?

Most recently, another group of genius intelligence cubical people were responsible for killing a batch of pakistani women and kids using and RC plane packed with explosives. Make no mistake, this is the best they can do. If they could possibly do better, they would.

[endarkenment]

7. None Nada Zilch. NT.

[KansDem]

8. This raises an intriguing point...

Since George the Torturer authorized wiretapping BEFORE 9/11, we can assume he was spying on all those calls coming in and out of the US by the 9/11 terrorists who were living in San Diego and those who were attending flight school in Florida, and etc. etc.

So, why didn't he act on the information gleaned from this spying? Considering he let all the bin Ladens in the US go right after 9/11 without them being questioned, and that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi, and that the bin Laden family and the Bush family were close business associates, I'd hazard to guess he did nothing with the information, and will even go so far as to say that since he didn't do anything when told of the attacks by Andy Card, he must have known about the attacks beforehand.

[fairandunbalanced]

10. only suspects

Not one single wiretap has lead to anything substantial, and with everyone being a suspect, well except Bush and His cronies, there is no end in site to the practice of spying and then of course permanent detention without a hearing of course. Its not Al Quaeda they are really after, its about control. Let me assure you that big brother is doing a lot more than watching now! G W Bush made it clear years ago when the war machine started bombing, your either with them or you are the enemy.

[phoebe]

13. they did intercept calls from Atta/terrorists prior to 9/11 but denied it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=235819

notice that the nature of the calls have never been made public.

Bush saying they need to spy on terrorists to keep us safe now is laughable when they could have stopped Atta pre-9/11..

[pbear81]

17. The way I heard it,

some communications that were intercepted just before 9/11 could not be reported to domestic law enforcement due to the "wall" the Patriot Act later took down.

[phoebe]

19. What about the whistleblowers who have confirmed that they passed

along the information and yet were stonewalled all along the chain of command by their superiors? So then why the stonewalling if the situation was SO dire? And WHY deny the calls even took place? This whole NSA situation stinks to high heaven.

[NYC Liberal]

16. I'm sure they've had a lot of ARRESTS. The pertinent question is:

how many CONVICTIONS have they gotten, using evidence obtained from these wiretaps?

[pbear81]

18. prosecutions are not the primary goal,

prevention of attacks is. Further surveillance, with appropriate warrants, would be necessary to build a case that would stand up in court. But those precedures are not effective at prevention, only at putting bad guys in jail after they wreak havoc.

[phoebe]

20. If prevention of attacks was the primary goal, why deny the pre-9/11 calls

took place despite evidence to the contrary? Why stonewall the ones who reported the calls? Why no further investigation allowed? Don't forget, this was the DIRECTOR of the NSA denying that these calls occurred..and why would Condoleezza Rice throw away the report if prevention was the goal?

[leftofthedial]

21. well they capture al Qaeda's #2 197 times at last count

but I don't think any of those were from an illegal wiretap

in fact, I think the correct answer is ZERO


but they did steal two national elections since they started the illegal wiretaps.