The Boston Marathon Bombing Shows Why Surveillance State Doesn't Work

[rhett o rick]

See at "therealnews.com" April 15, 2014

Does the expanded surveillance provide more or less security?

Kade Crockford, Dir., Technology for Liberty Project, ACLU of MA responds:

Essentially, the situation that we have right now is that the FBI investigates so many people, again, who are not suspected of criminal activity or any involvement in terrorism, that it can't even remember the important people they do investigate. And they're wasting tons of resources going after people against whom they have no allegation of criminal activity or other wrongdoing.

So, you know, this sort of suspicionless spying doesn't only impact civil liberties in a negative way; it also has a negative impact on public safety, because it means that precious law enforcement resources that should be dedicated towards, for example, pursuing--investigations of people like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom the Russians told the United States was planning to travel to Dagestan to work with terrorist groups, can be conducted thoroughly.

more at: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11733

Is the expensive expanded surveillance state worth the loss of our civil liberties?

Remember to GOTV

[NYC_SKP]

1. Is the expensive expanded surveillance state worth the loss of our civil liberties? *NO*

We've given up far too much as it is, all in the interest of security.

All bullshit, all engineered to skew the playing field against the already powerless, in favor of the few and powerful.

Their greed and lust for power knows no bounds.

[rhett o rick]

12. I agree. Thanks for posting.

[Blue_Tires]

2. I don't think the Boston Marathon bombing is the best example to cite

since ironically without security cameras (and nonstop amateur crowdsourcing poring over every frame) the Tsarnaevs would have easily escaped, quite possibly without ever being properly identified...

[rhett o rick]

5. Spending the vast amounts of money on the Surveillance State is sold to us on the pretext of

preventing attacks. The tools you mentioned, security cameras and personal cameras are not part of the Surveillance State and would have been available without eavesdropping on all Americans.

One point of the interviewee was that the Surveillance State has grown so big that it reduces the chances of preventing an attack. Too much data.

Enough data was available to prevent the 9/11 attack but it went overlooked because of the amount of data. Spending money we cant afford to acquire more data isnt the answer.

[Blue_Tires]

6. "security cameras are not part of the Surveillance State"?

Wow...

Security cameras were the *SECOND* technological building block of the 'Surveillance State', after bugs/phone taps...

[rhett o rick]

8. The security cameras that we are talking about were neither paid for, installed, nor

monitored by the Surveillance State. They would have existed with or without the enhancements to the Surveillance State.

The expensive Surveillance State that's being sold to us is for the prevention of attacks.

[Blue_Tires]

10. I don't differentiate the two based on origin or intent

They are all in the same category to me...

[rhett o rick]

11. The point is that ballooning the budgets and allowing violations of our liberties

has done nothing to make us safer. And most likely didnt aid in the capture of the attackers.

[djean111]

3. The Surveillance State works exceedingly well - you just think it is there to prevent things.

The Surveillance State is meant to collect as much information as possible, in order to sift through it later.
It is not proactive. "Surveillance" is actually retroactive, unless there is an ongoing investigation.
And this is why there are instructions on how to build a "legal" chain of information, because that fruit from a poison tree thing needs to be gotten around.

Our Surveillance State is not really useful until after the fact, and then they can rummage through everything at their leisure. Search emails and phone conversations for key words, construct a picture of phone activity, everything.
The biggest baddest Hadoop-style data warehouse in the world!

[Maedhros]

4. The surveillance state is not intended to keep U.S. citizens safe from "terrorists".

It is intended to keep the entrenched powers-that-be safe from U.S. citizens.

[1000words]

7. Considering folks cheered "voluntary" martial law ....

I'd say Boston feels the trade off is worth it.

[Liberal_Dog]

9. There Will Never Be 100% Security

Whatever we try to do, someone will figure a way around it.

All this surveillance state crap isn't about security-- it is about feeling secure. IMHO, it is not worth losing our civil liberties over.

[JoeyT]

13. That's because dirty liberals won't let it go far enough.

If you'd just back off your silly pie-in-the-sky stance on letting us search anyone anytime anywhere, including their home, personal effects, documents, and computers, we'd never have another terrorist attack again.

[rhett o rick]

14. I agree. Who did Ben Franklin think he was anywayz? nm

[JoeyT]

15. Probably a dirty communist sympathizer

with wooden boxes full of horse poop in his stables.