Lost in all of this: 9/11 could have been prevented if Bush had taken security briefings seriously.

[Pale Blue Dot]

We didn't need a Department of Homeland Security. We didn't need drone strikes. We didn't need to store the phone records of every American. We didn't need to outsource to private corporations. We didn't need 2 useless wars, with hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead. We just needed a competent President who read his fucking briefings and who believed what his intelligence agencies were telling him.

Everything that's been put into place since then has been designed to solve a problem that never existed. And our current President has bought into it hook, line, and sinker - in spite of the fact that 9/11 very likely would have been prevented if he was President then.

[PearliePoo2]

1. They were all too fucking arrogant, besides....

the PNAC had their own plan.
K&R

[Buzz Clik]

2. Agreed about all the post-9/11 surveillance. But let me ask you this:

Where do you think the intel about bin Laden and 9/11 came from?

[Pale Blue Dot]

4. A functioning intelligence bureaucracy?

That cost about 1/1000th of what we're paying now?

There's certainly no evidence they used any of the tactics exposed by Snowden or mentioned in my OP.

[Buzz Clik]

5. "A functioning intelligence bureaucracy?" What do you think that entails?

Two guys chatting over a cup of coffee?

[Pale Blue Dot]

6. So your argument, just so I can be clear, is that the things in my OP,

Such as collecting the phone records of all Americans, drone strikes, etc, were going on pre 9/11? And that 9/11 could not have been prevented without those things happening that we don't know happened? I anxiously await you explicitly going on record with this.

[Buzz Clik]

7. No. I said nothing of the kind.

I was just curious if you had a clue where the pre-911 intel came from. You don't.

We can stop here.

[Pale Blue Dot]

8. LOL. I'm perfectly fine with very publicly stopping here. Nt

[JaneyVee]

10. The intel came from the NSA. Here's the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html

Excerpt: "Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."

[Pale Blue Dot]

11. Using the tactics listed in the OP and/or exposed by Snowden?

I don't see that in the article. Or any discussion of specifics.

[JaneyVee]

12. The NSA intercepted Al-Qaeda phone calls and warned Bush & Condi Rice about 9/11 threats.

ETA: I agree, because of Bush incompetence this surveillance state was foisted upon us.

[Pale Blue Dot]

13. So those were domestic calls made by or to U.S. citizens?

Discovered before the NSA had probable cause? They just stored all of the phone call data and then looked it up?

[JaneyVee]

14. I believe the hijackers resided in Florida if I'm not mistaken. So they were calling foreign #'s

[Pale Blue Dot]

15. You're joking about this, right? Bin Laden was already responsible for terrorist attacks against US

citizens. There's not a court, jury, or American that would have objected to us monitoring every communication coming in and out of his headquarters. That's the very definition of probable cause. What the NSA did, therefore, was legal and reasonable. There's no reason to even imply that they needed anywhere near the power that they, and independent contractors that they (apparently) have little control over, have today.

My point stands: None of what we have created in the days since 9/11 was needed to stop 9/11.

[JaneyVee]

17. I wasn't responding to your OP, I was responding to your comment, which I responded to.

I'm agreeing with you about the "since 9/11" statement, but the NSA was created before 9/11 and I gave you a link that states they were the ones who gathered the pre-9/11 intel.

[ehcross]

19. The NSA should be given full capability to continue to monitor communications.

These are the facts about 9/11:

1) The NSA properly identified the threat based on signals intelligence gathering.

2) The NSA duly warned Bush & Condi Rice. But nothing was done about it.

Because Al-Qaeda is still a clear and present danger to United States security, the NSA should continue to monitor communications so that threats can be identified and dealt with.

[Triana]

3. But....but....

BENGHAZI!

[Berlum]

9. "D'oh" - George AWOL Bush (R)

[dkf]

16. Oh but Presidents don't have the power to do anything, not to increase surveillance or stop it.

Yeah it's all Congress... donchaknow?

[Pale Blue Dot]

18. Kick.

I'm alarmed by how few are responding to this basic, obvious point.

I was on DU in 2002, and I promise it was universally acknowledged then.