The practice of the NSA is if nothing else unethical. It needs to stop.
I am not saying the program didn't turn up results, but, it didn't stop the underwear bomber or the shoe bomber. Therefore? It should continue?
The program 'got lucky' on a few occasions. That doesn't mean anything. The NSA is patting itself on the back too much. They sure as heck didn't catch Osama bin Laden.
This program is a pipe dream and dangerous. "If we could only have a mind
reader tell us when the next bomb is going off." Mind readers are few and far between. To my understanding, which may be completely wrong, the NSA doesn't even employ mind readers.
AND.
The NSA did not tip off Lebanon about the car bomb today! Didn't happen to run across THAT PATTERN in the meta data, huh? And don't tell me there is no one at the NSA not collecting data from Lebanon. That would be a lie.
When one counts all the war, car bombs, random acts of violence and the fact the NSA is collecting all this data and storing it, WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO? It sure doesn't encourage peace. If anything it is just the opposite and putting the USA in the cross hairs of plenty of speculation to it's activities and intentions.
President Obama needs to stop defending this practice and begin to analyze the effectiveness of the program at all. It is not preventing anything that would not be found in other ways. If we spent the money on this computer bullshit for agents and real national intelligence the world might actually be a safer place.
Currently, considering the size and scope of the NSA program, it has a very poor performance. It isn't worth the money. And would it have stopped 911? NO. Why? Because the Executive Branch did NOTHING to stop it with the intelligence they had. It is impossible to stop maniacal men from being maniacal. That is what the people of the USA and the world are afraid of. They aren't afraid of the program so much as the people in the White House and their justification of another illegal war.
The PROGRAM is dangerous and needs to end. It is untrustworthy in the safety of Americans, for many reasons and not just it's poor performance.
The NSA surveillance program and it's collection and storage of data IS a menace in this world. It is as maniacal as those that claim it is beneficial. There is NO surveillance that is beneficial; that is not the nature of the beast. No one in this world wants a repeat of Iraq or worse. The program has to end. It is not effective, not even close. The storage of data needs to be destroyed.
