| > Mind you, I am not defending the NSA strategy, I don't know if it is justifiable, I am just saying that Greenwald doesn't make any effort to let some opposing views to be presented. Here's some fun statistics: There are about 30,000 gun related deaths a year in the United States (19000 suicide, 11000 murders). There are about another 30,000 vehicle related deaths a year in the United States. There are about 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks - the deadliest act of terrorism perpetrated against the United States. Are you saying that we should use the massive spying apparatus - including invading cellphone calls and emails - to stop even one third of murders? How about stop one sixth of suicides before they happen? Because that would save more Americans than stopping a 9/11 scale attack every year would do - which is more than the NSA is claimed to have done. In reality, it would take 10 9/11 scale attacks on the US each and every year to rival the number of deaths caused by guns. Do you support using the government spy apparatus to stop these gun deaths? If not, why support something that isn't appropriate for a /larger/ problem to solve a small one? I think most Americans panicked when they felt attacked, and became total cowards - as did their leadership at the time. The correct response to terrorism is simply to shrug it off and ignore it (or at least limit yourself to prudent measures) - the deaths, strictly speaking, are a statistical blip on the radar - but the damage you can do to your civil liberties and society at large can last decades and impact generations of an entire nation. tl;dr: America got sucker punched, and just like a bitch, got all fearful and cowardly about how it acted. The NSA spying is a sign of that fear and cowardice (possibly being used to nefarious ends by people exploiting it). |