[aresant]

You make a good top level point that I think most would agree with - successful terror plots degrade our freedom because we fearfululy grant our government more power.

But to broadly call spying apparatus ineffective and incompetent weakens your argument.

There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone, surely many more we will never know about.(1)

There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.

The complexity in the discussion is that it clearly doesn't work 100% of the time and comes at a significant cost

But this isn't a black and white issue, we are in the grey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...

[sjm-lbm]

The real complexity of the discussion comes from the unknown number of attacks that would be prevented with very mild pre-9/11 security measures.

Earlier this year, I read The Looming Towers, an overview of various historical factors that led to the 9/11 attacks. Its focus is really more on the origins on Islamic extremism, not logistical planning of the 9/11 attacks, but it did cover several aspects of 9/11 specifically that were very interesting. Importantly, the FBI and CIA - between them - had enough information to stop the attacks but did not collaborate well enough, mostly due to the differing goals between the CIA and the FBI. To the CIA, a potential terrorist is an asset - they hope that person, if left on the street, will attempt to contact someone higher up in (say) al Qaeda and therefore generate more data for the agency. To the FBI, such a person is a suspect, and really needs to be taken off the street as soon as enough evidence has been gathered to build a criminal case against him. During the summer of 2001, the FBI was blocked form getting the full CIA info on several important 9/11 figures because the CIA knew they'd be immediately arrested with that information.

(that is, of course, a broad overview, but the main point is more or less correct)

It's frustrating to see so many people embracing their lack of freedom as a security blanket. We don't need to use terror to grant our governments more control over our lives, we need just need to hold those who claim to be keeping us safe accountable.

[gotchange]

The pre-9/11 CIA/FBI power play detailed in your comment was portrayed to some degree in the 1998 movie "The Siege" by Denzel Washington. Any chance you've seen it before?

[sjm-lbm]

I haven't, but I might give it a watch.

[fukusa]

>There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone

Many of these terror plots are orchestrated by the FBI. Source: https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrori...

[kefs]

The Talk section of the Wiki article lists the many problems with that list.. You really should stop citing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_unsuccessful_terr...

[moistgorilla]

Ah yes, the Brooklyn Bridge terrorist that was trying to use a jackhammer to bring it down. Thank you NSA for preventing this tragedy that could only prevented with pervasive surveillance.

[apologistimic]

If every single one of the plots you noted (including the ones that were actually reverse stings organized by the FBI) was wildly successful, terrorism would kill about as many Americans as accidental gun discharges do. And that's not realistic.

Terrorism is bullshit. Sadly, we can't do the right thing because the country is full of cowardly morons who think that the solution is toppling more governments, killing more people, and hoping that somehow this time will be different.

[jessaustin]

...actually reverse stings organized by the FBI

The transparency report I'd love to see, which I doubt will ever be released, is the number of stings which end up being LEOs on both sides, in which e.g. one handler is hoping to sting a weapons dealer and the other is hoping to sting a weapons buyer.

[gotchange]

> The transparency report I'd love to see, which I doubt will ever be released, is the number of stings which end up being LEOs on both sides, in which e.g. one handler is hoping to sting a weapons dealer and the other is hoping to sting a weapons buyer.

That would be a great Pink Panther sketch/scene :)

[scrollaway]

> There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.

It works, but not (just) for terrorism prevention. It also works great for other things, such as preventing political ideologies you don't like from spreading. Or just in general as a power play over citizens.