[mindcrime]

If it's so easy to accomplish, why doesn't it happen more?

Maybe because outside of Vince Flynn and Brad Thor novels, and Hollywood summer blockbusters, there aren't actually that many people who: A. are motivated to conduct a terrorist attack, and B. equipped / able / willing to do so.

It seems that no one who brings this argument up acknowledges the possibility that terrorism doesn't seem like a big threat precisely because of the extreme precautions taken to stop it.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's not falsifiable. I mean, here ya go: I have a Tiger Proof Rock I'll see you. It absolutely protects against tiger attacks. How do I know it works? Well, in 39 years, I have never once been attacked by a tiger.

Anyway, this whole line of discussion shows exactly why we need more transparency and less secrecy from our government. We don't know if what they're doing works or not, because we largely don't know what they're doing. And this is not how a free, open and democratic society is supposed to work. We should not be a nation of secret laws, secret court systems, and shadowy government agencies operating in the dark.

[sopooneo]

Throw away the rock for a few years and see what happens. That's the test.

[tkahn6]

> Maybe because outside...

I explicitly acknowledged this in the very next sentence. The difference is that you assert this as a fact (for which you have no evidence) and I state it as a possible explanation.

> The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's not falsifiable.

And for the same reason the claim that terrorism is not a problem due to lack of sufficiently motivated terrorists is also not falsifiable. Hence my suggestion that the government scale back their anti-terrorism [spying] operations and see what the outcome is.

> we need more transparency and less secrecy from our government

Agreed.

[mindcrime]

I explicitly acknowledged this in the very next sentence. The difference is that you assert this as a fact (for which you have no evidence) and I state it as a possible explanation.

I actually meant to end that with a question mark, but I mistyped it and didn't notice until I saw your reply. I definitely don't mean to assert that as fact, but just floating it out there as a scenario worth considering.