NSA chief defends its spying programs

[Indi Guy]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON — Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, defended his agency, saying what his staff does "is bring back more U.S. soldiers, airmen and Marines" alive from dangerous postings.

"We see the threats coming at this nation," Alexander said.

"We see what neither the CIA nor FBI could see" before 9/11, Alexander said. "We help them connect the dots."

In just five months, terrorists have killed thousands of people in Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, he said. "And yet not one major terrorist incident in the United States since 9/11. That's not by accident," Alexander said...



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/29/nsa-spying-congress-testimony/3304221/

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. General, I am a bit hazy on how bugging Merkel's phone and spying on 60 million phone calls

in Spain brought more of our "U.S. soldiers, airmen and Marines" home alive. We officially ended our state of war with Germany on 19 October 1951, and that old fascist dictator Francisco Franco y Bahamonde died on 20 November 1975.

[Indi Guy]

4. Well (chief Alexander speaking)...

...My old boss used to say that there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.

The known unknowns serve as a median against which we can ascertain the relative importance of both the known knowns and the unknown unknowns. Now we know that Germany And Spain are no security threat (a known known). We also know that their potential for degenerating into terrorist states, however small, is not known (a known unknown). Therefore it behoves us to cast an electronic dragnet over such nations and gather as much data as possible in order to discover that which we do not know we should be fearful of (the unknown unknowns).

It's simply a matter of logic.

[MrTriumph]

2. Shouldn't the NSA's record start BEFORE 9/11?

It isn't as though the NSA did not exist prior to 9/11. In fact, wasn't there a PBS program about the NSA's failures in the months before 9/11?

[mountain grammy]

3. Alexander's a nut..