General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLive coverage of NSA testimony at House hearing, if anyone is interested
http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/report-of-us-mining-internet-company-datamalaise
(269,278 posts)JimDandy
(7,318 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)It's like they've created a foolproof test when we know they haven't come anywhere near it.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)to listen to the hearing.
But I figured someone else would.
Hearings were at least a good source of comedy during the Bush era....esp. Gonzales' appearances.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Them here, caught them in the plot and arrested them all.
Sounds like they located haters, gave them the capabilities, then arrested them.
Without giving them the capabilities were they much of a danger?
If we offered that to people in a country that hates us wouldn't we get oodles of takers?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Yes!!!!
a repeated pattern of that, too. Followed by huge headlines that FBI and et al. were doing such a good job.
Sorta reminds me of all the headlines reporting repeated killings of # 2 Al-Quada,
but no one seems to notice that #1 continues to be floating around.
dkf
(37,305 posts)I dunno. Potential boondoggle
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)puppets trying to 'look serious' and 'neutral' the other night droning on about the British Terror Cell that was exposed. He tried to look 'neutral' by working the 'report' he was giving on how it was exposed. Not one time was he able to, nor did he try, to explain how collecting phone American's phone numbers (can't they just use the yellow pages anyhow) had anything to do with that case.
But nevertheless after telling this whole 'scary story' about that 'terror cell' he finished by saying something along the lines of the NSA's claims of having helped with that. If you knew nothing about any of this, you would walk away hearing only 'terror cell exposed' 'NSA' somehow involved. And that is how they do it. He was NOT asked to explain exactly how that cell was exposed, which had zero to do with the NSA's data collection on Americans.
Alexander is using the same tactic here. Throwing out 'terror' (god, they will never end terrorism, what woud they use to justify all the money if they did?) and 'NSA' and making claims with nothing backing them up. But some idiots will just hear they caught terrorists using phone numbers, and that's okay with me.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Monkie
(1,301 posts)that sure sounds like unbiased hearings to find out the truth about these programs!
if you are a pig in orwells 1984
this is what a open debate about the programs means in the US?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)They would give up methods and sources...
(Yes, it is sheer comedy) Alexander is protecting the golden goose
Monkie
(1,301 posts)stupidity on a epic scale.
how anyone can "watch" this and defend this is beyond me.
Alexander is talking about how the NSA surveillance programs could have he emphasizes that this is all hypothetical prevented a 9/11 plot.
Joyce (of the FBI) earlier said the government failed to intercept a phone call between a Yemeni safehouse and Khalid al-Midhar in San Diego. The safehouse had been under surveillance; it is unclear whether the call was not intercepted, or whether it was intercepted but could not be tied to Midhar.
If the tie between Yemen and Midhar had been made, Alexander says, the greater plot may have become visible.
"Ideally, going from Midhar, we would have been able to find the other three teams in the United States," Alexander says. "Or in Germany."
It's hypothetical, but we didn't have that ability. We couldn't connect the dots because we didn't have the dots.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)are simply plays, for the masses and media.
Gives the Congress people a chance to wave their arms and develop their sounds bites.
Very little comes of it.