| Frankly, I don't believe you at all because this pattern has happened before: insiders claim that surveillance is responsible for preventing tons of harm, but when those claims are closely examined (even by other aspects of government) a whole lot of nothing is found. https://www.propublica.org/article/whats-the-evidence-mass-s... > In 2013, the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies analyzed terrorism cases from 2001 on, and determined that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records “was not essential to preventing attacks.” > The NSA has publicly discussed four cases, and just one in which surveillance made a significant difference. That case involved a San Diego taxi driver named Basaaly Moalin, who sent $8,500 to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab. But even the details of that case are murky. From the Washington Post: > In 2009, an FBI field intelligence group assessed that Moalin’s support for al-Shabab was not ideological. Rather, according to an FBI document provided to his defense team, Moalin probably sent money to an al-Shabab leader out of “tribal affiliation” and to “promote his own status” with tribal elders. It's been long enough that if this shit actually worked, there'd be plenty of success stories that could be disclosed without harming confidential interests. They'd be trumpeting them to the heavens to attempt to justify reauthorization. Instead, we get taxi driver man and a whole lot of "just trust us". I do acknowledge that ProPublica article is dated, but AFAIK no counterexamples have emerged since - which is kind of the whole problem. |
The government should not give up powerful intelligence tactics, techniques, and procedures solely because the general public has a want to know. We have elected representatives with clearances for those purposes.