Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Top security officials said Tuesday they disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots using government surveillance, The New York Times reports.
Trying to fend off fierce criticism about the recent disclosure of government surveillance, national security officers told the House Intelligence Committee that investigators used the private information to prevent terrorist attacks.
One thwarted attack included a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, and another involved a group of California men convinced of sending money to Islamic extremists in Somalia, The Times reported.
At the rare public oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, head of the NSA, said surveillance provided invaluable information.
“In the 12 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation,” General Alexander said. “That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on 9/11.”
We have a very interesting situation.. The secret surveillance has resulted in 50 secret attacks being stopped.. Now we can’t tell you what was stopped because they were secret .. so trust us .. we are the good guys This reminds me sooooooo much of the book 1984 and the movie W ..both where government wanted the people so afraid they would give up freedom to feel safe
That book was just 30 years ahead
Great! You can point to 50 cases where information gleaned from this program helped in some way to save lives. I guess what you are trying to say is that the end justifies the means.
Boy, I sure wish that I could point to 50 instances where people’s Constitutional Rights were violated, but besides being classified (perhaps it was me or you…), when people’s rights are violated it is not always known overtly.
How many times has a government functionary used your Social Security Number to search a database? You don’t know? Why not?
The Fourth is very explicit, and very clear. If you have to get into a debate about what the word “search” and “reasonable” means, than I would like to introduce you to a former president that appears to have problems with the simple word “is”.
We, those of us out here in the country, don’t have a problem with defining such words. If there’s a question, then there really IS NO QUESTION.
The Constitution MUST be given total control over all of the laws and actions of Government. You can play your weasel lawyer games over words, but WE know that once you start that, that particular right is being misused. Period.