Comments on: Sure Is A Great Thing We Have This Expansive Surveillance Apparatus To Save American Lives

By: hieronimo

hieronimo — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:49:16 +0000

I think there is a much larger story here: about soldiers’ health, neglect, PTSD, consequences of the wars, failure to take care of and invest in those expected to take care of the rest of us. There are stories today from Camp Carson in Colorado Springs, and Camp Lejeune in South Carolina, of soldiers and marines, returning from combat and killing. Local news sources around bases will have more. It is a national pattern, and one which Vets organizations and others have warned about. It isn’t an issue Lieberman or any of the war party can deal with in its full extent, and it is not a religious story

By: robspierre

robspierre — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:32:26 +0000

I missed your comment the first time through, but I am sure that you are right.

Too much data and too little information has always been the biggest problem with datamining. The other is, of course, the readiness with which humans project false, imaginary patterns onto large bodies of random elements.

Datamining has to be the worst way to find criminals that one could imagine. Anyone that doubts me, remember that datamining is, I believe, an invention of America’s marketers. How accurate is the marketers’ version of you? If you are like me, not very.

By: robspierre

robspierre — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:27:19 +0000

What you definitely won’t hear from proponents of warrantless spying is that dragnet intrusion into the lives of the population as a whole very likely CAUSED the various security agencies to miss Nidal Hasan. Datamining–and all spying that isn’t focused at least to the extent required by a warrant–is bound to produce thousands if not tens of thousands of false “terrorist” hits for every actual bit of criminal evidence. So finding a real criminal this way means sorting through endless false leads.

Those that call loudly for trashing the Constitution forget that the laws aren’t just a protection for the accused. They are the way that we discover the truly guilty. The laws force the police to focus on a likely perpetrator BEFORE starting the investigation. Laws narrow the field. They then force the prosecution to prove a case and show conclusively that a crime happened in the way the government claims.

Lieberman and his Bushist allies want to replace logical, rigorously defined legal tests with technological hearsay and innuendo by datamining because the latter are good politics, not because they are good ways to protect the public.

By: meepmeep09

meepmeep09 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:09:40 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you! That putz Brian Ross has never answered the questions about who played him like a fiddle on that whole Iraq-provided-the-anthrax BS back in 2001. Maybe it's that same totally awesome source that's feeding him on this story? Ross' history in this matter has been addressed elsewhere; I usually saw it via Glennzilla - see here and here, for example. Hotshot "journalists" like this - e.g., Isikoff - got former Alamo physicist Wen-Ho Lee put into solitary in leg-irons; no biggie, other than lack of evidence. Man, this sh*t really pushes my buttons - and not in a good way.

By: drational

drational — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:02:26 +0000

I suspect that where this is headed is that the NSA was aware of Hasan radicalization in terms of being on a long, long list of radical website hitters, so in that regard intelligence services “knew” of his connections from having mined his communications. And the frame will be that the actual investigations or actions that “could have prevented the tragedy” were stymied by civil liberties concerns over how the important data was obtained. They are blessed with the congressionally-approved ability to archive and search every communication of everyone, and it is only the weak-kneed democrats in cahoots with the ACLU that are preventing the FBI from saving us from terrorism. Hoekstra/Lieberman: Now we have a US person who is a lone-wolf terrorist; why should intelligence be forced to minimize and have judicial oversight when lives are at stake?

By: marc

marc — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:04:16 +0000

Maybe this is too simplistic an answer but perhaps all this data mining is taking the investigator’s minds off of the ball and overloading them with far more information than they can use. It becomes near impossible to focus on a few needles in such a huge hay stack.

By: Teddy Partridge

Teddy Partridge — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:02:34 +0000

Of course, Lieberman will look through the wrong end of the telescope to go Muslim-radical-hunting. What a maroon.

By: Spencer Ackerman

Spencer Ackerman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:30:22 +0000

Very good point. Still, I felt I couldn’t just let this report pass.

By: Mmonax

Mmonax — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:14:44 +0000

Let’s not forget, though, how badly ABC News got played on the anthrax attacks. It wouldn’t be the first time they were lied to in the service of someone’s political agenda.

I’m not suggesting this is massively likely, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility either.

By: Cynthia Kouril

Cynthia Kouril — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:14:25 +0000

Spencer, I would give my eyeteeth to be a fly on the wall during the meeetings between DOD and CIA in the coming days and weeks.

Or soldiers got killed, on our own soil, there has to be a ton of anger over at the Pentagon.