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The Backfiring of the Surveillance State
Every debate over expanded government surveillance power is invariably framed as one of "security v. privacy and civil liberties" -- as though it's a given that increasing the Government's surveillance authorities will "make us safer." But it has long been clear that the opposite is true. As numerous experts (such as Rep. Rush Holt) have attempted, with futility, to explain, expanding the scope of raw intelligence data collected by our national security agencies invariably impedes rather than bolsters efforts to detect terrorist plots. This is true for two reasons: (1) eliminating strict content limits on what can be surveilled (along with enforcement safeguards, such as judicial warrants) means that government agents spend substantial time scrutinizing and sorting through communications and other information that have nothing to do with terrorism; and (2) increasing the quantity of what is collected makes it more difficult to find information relevant to actual terrorism plots. As Rep. Holt put it when arguing against the obliteration of FISA safeguards and massive expansion of warrantless eavesdropping power which a bipartisan Congress effectuated last year:
It has been demonstrated that when officials must establish before a court that they have reason to intercept communications -- that is, that they know what they are doing -- we get better intelligence than through indiscriminate collection and fishing expeditions.
The failure of the U.S. Government to detect the fairly glaring Northwest Airlines Christmas plot -- despite years and years of constant expansions of Surveillance State powers -- illustrates this dynamic perfectly. As President Obama said yesterday, the Government -- just as was true for 9/11 -- had gathered more than enough information to have detected this plot, or at least to have kept Abdulmutallab off airplanes and out of the country. Yet our intelligence agencies -- just as was true for 9/11 -- failed to understand what they had in their possession. Why is that? Because they had too much to process, including too much data wholly unrelated to Terrorism. In other words, our panic-driven need to vest the Government with more and more surveillance power every time we get scared again by Terrorists -- in the name of keeping us safe -- has exactly the opposite effect. Numerous pieces of evidence prove that.
Today in The Washington Post, that paper's CIA spokesman, David Ignatius, explains that Abdulmutallab never made it onto a no-fly list because there are simply too many reports of suspicious individuals being submitted on a daily basis, which causes the system to be "clogged" -- overloaded -- with information having nothing to do with Terrorism. As a result, actually relevant information ends up obscured or ignored. Identically, Newsweek's Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball report that U.S. intelligence agencies intercept, gather and store so many emails, recorded telephone calls, and other communications that it's simply impossible to sort through or understand what they have, quite possibly causing them to have missed crucial evidence in their possession about both the Fort Hood and Abdulmutallab plots:
This deluge of Internet traffic -- involving e-mailers whose true identity often is not apparent -- is one indication of the volume of raw intelligence U.S. spy agencies have had to sort through as they have tried to assess Awlaki's influence in the West and elsewhere, said the officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information. The large volume of messages also may help to explain how agencies can become so overwhelmed with data that sometimes it is difficult, if not impossible, to connect potentially important dots.
Newsweek adds that intelligence agencies likely possessed emails between accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki -- as well as recorded telephone calls between al-Awlaki and Abdulmutallab -- but simply failed to analyze or understand what they had intercepted.
The problem is never that the U.S. Government lacks sufficient power to engage in surveillance, interceptions, intelligence-gathering and the like. Long before 9/11 -- from the Cold War -- we have vested extraordinarily broad surveillance powers in the U.S. Government to the point that we have turned ourselves into a National Security and Surveillance State. Terrorist attacks do not happen because there are too many restrictions on the government's ability to eavesdrop and intercept communications, or because there are too many safeguards and checks. If anything, the opposite is true: the excesses of the Surveillance State -- and the steady abolition of oversights and limits -- have made detection of plots far less likely. Despite that, we have an insatiable appetite -- especially when we're frightened anew -- to vest more and more unrestricted spying and other powers in our Government, which -- like all governments -- is more than happy to accept it.
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44 Comments so far
Show AllGreenwald sez: "... there are simply too many reports of suspicious individuals being submitted on a daily basis, which causes the system to be "clogged" -- overloaded -- with information having nothing to do with Terrorism."
***
Perhaps Ted Kennedy could now be removed from the no-fly list. That would free up a spot, eh?
Sioux Rose
GOEBBELS: Good one.
I remember relating in this forum that the sheer volume of info would turn the surveillance agencies and their agents into a modern version of KeyStone Cops.
Glad to find that Mr. Greenwald can substantiate that theory!
I have been flying the same domestic route each month for the past decade on business with reservations made by the same corporate travel agent. I have only travelled outside the US 3 times during the past decade.
I should be an easy case to profile by the Government if their surveillance/intelligence was worthwhile. Judging from the increasing number of hoops they make me jump through to check-in, it appears they need to re-evaluate the effectiveness of their methods.
Summed up thus:
These security geniuses believe that the way you find a needle in a haystack is to continually add more hay.
Public Law 107-40 - 'the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force ... in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism'.
The insanity mentioned in the article derives from this mad law.
It will continue as long as the law remains in effect, as long as the law hides secretly, unmentioned, never questioned.
Well stated, Mr. Greenwald.
I would add that the belief that the U.S. treats detained terror suspects worse than dogs, and particularly that torture remains a valued tool, and the belief that informing the U.S. of the location of terror suspects invariably results in the massacre of innocent civilians ("collateral damage"), prevent us from receiving information, such as what we got from Abdulmutallub's father, that could be used to stop terrorist plots or to back up prosecutions of suspects.
I have come up with the perfect solution: waterboard all airline passengers!
Greenwald is correct except for 9/11 not being an intelligence failure.
That is the Neocon excuse.
Taking it one step further the USA intell are very aware they have to much info to deal with " terrorists" but that is not the main objective.
Monitoring enviornmental and civil unrest is why everyone is survailed
Personally, I believe that the money we throw away for our impossible security is all wasted until we start acting like a good neighbor--By now I hate you, just imagine how the ones that you have robbed, wounded, murdered, and destroyed their future feel about you--you can't stay in that gated community forever, can you?
Garbage in , garbage out. This still holds true.
Best we can do when ignorant societies use technology.
I was always against all this draconian surveillance nonsense - but now I just might be in favor of more.
The US-Corporate Government has seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.. don't get it twisted by assuming otherwise.
They will spare no expense escalating "enhanced" surveillance measures. Feel fortunate if the bill is the only thing you're stuck with.
Like Admiral Poindexter's wet dream of a giant electronic surveillance vaccuum cleaner, indiscriminately sucking up and storing every phone call, FAX, email, and internet posting for subsequent retrieval and analysis, the phenomenon Glenn and Representative Holt talk about in this article is very real: the more data bits the Surveillance State gathers up, the more garbage inevitably gets intermixed into the flow to clog up the analysis process, enhancing the likelihood that the occasional snippet of genuinely credible intelligence information will be overlooked.
Those enamored with this surveillance model will of course answer this criticism in the usual self-serving manner: what we (the good guys in the white hats) need is more resources, more analysts, more spooks, more computer capability - more money, more money, more money. Every near miss like the Detroit underwear bomber reinforces that simple dynamic, particularly when the external political system is revved up to pin instant blame for "failing to keep America safe" upon the crew currently in charge of the ship of state whenever the shit hits the fan.
The real evil isn't so much the fear that little government gnomes are gleefully listening in contemporaneously on every single piece of intercepted communication (although, if you happen to be a target, that is an understandable real world worry). The overarching evil of the Surveillance State vaccuum cleaner model is that reality can be reconstructed from the stored data bits long after the fact, the "dots connected" at the spooks' warrantless leisure, then creatively reassembled (perhaps with equally creative tweeking) to fit whatever threat pattern the government wants to see.
Bill from Saginaw
Sioux Rose
Yikes, Bill... I hadn't thought of the outcome you raised in your post's final paragraph. CS Lewis would be proud of your analysis. The dark side could probably turn a Brownie box mix into a lethal combination, come to think of it.
//...then creatively reassembled (perhaps with equally creative tweeking) to fit whatever threat pattern the government wants to see.//
Barbara Kingsolver's latest, /The Lacuna/, is instructive in this regard.
if these folks were creative they wouldn't be working for big brother.the
weight of this will cause it to collapse on itself at some point. the mentality is the same for these clowns as it is for the police departments across our wonderful
country- "we may be dumb but we are mean".
Bill, the real evil is that, we, the American people let this happen!
"...what we (the good guys in the white hats)..."
Just wonderin'...are those white hats pointy? Do we also wear dresses or aprons? Just trying to determine if 'we good guys in the white hats' are popes or chefs, that's all.
wasn't this guy escorted through security?
why would security stop someone they're being directed to allow to circumvent?
is this a security breakdown or a successful OP?
Exactly,
Here we have another well-educated rich kid, like John Hinkley Jr, provided easy access to the target. Why was he permitted to travel without a passport? Why was he given preferential treatment at security? Why was he in the company of operatives at the ticket counter as witnesses by fellow passengers? If he was an engineering student, as they claim, how could he botch the formula? People in engineering are meticulous, precise and don't usually botch it.
The old "Lee Harvey Oswald" lone-wolf story is not going to cut this time.
This guy was put up to this for some reason, imho.
Perhaps the war funding needed a boost, and this guy is the boost. All just my suspicions only.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
If the intelligence records have the accuracy of credit reports, then they are swamped with misinformation. I have checked my credit history and found it hopelessly intertwined with others with similar names. People named Khan or Ali, for instance, have no knowledge of what is on their records nor any opportunity to correct it. Also, as the article states, the sheer bulk of data makes it unlikely that true threats will be found in a timely manner, like a needle in the haystack. As a former computer person, I think it is a safe bet that the government databases are in a mess, full of inaccurate information and uncoordinated with one another. GIGO.
As Bill from Saginaw says above, the most likely use of this gigantic accumulation of data is after-the-fact searches and political targetting of anyone for any reason. We have seen data collection used to locate mistresses and trysts and to destroy political careers more than anything. Those are the public incidents. We do not know how many times information is used as a sword of Damocles.
Joe
Just look at Eliot Spitzer!
hi everybody!
Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if Abdulmutallab were a plant, a hapless oafish dupe of some MIC agency behind the scenes. Maybe one of Chertoff's clients. Maybe something to prepare the public to accept another military campaign somewhere. Maybe to scare us into accepting war on the citizenry (we're well on the way already). The mistakes were too obvious, the plan too amateurish to have been missed except deliberately, except as a manipulative ploy.
some people are of that opinion too, in some articles:
that this man is a "drone" - himself perhaps honestly thinking what he intended to do ..but a drone nevertheless - sent to do just what he did - and even "fail"...and lead the USA surveillance system on a wild-goose chase .. applying even more its growing fascistic powers - while the REAL BIG ones are being prepared and moving about ..while the USA "clogs" its own system of useless information while having enlarged its "information base" in that stupid hope to "catch" a terrorist.
it's just like bin laden boasted about:
"all we have to do is have 2 men wave an al qaeda flag somewhere in east afghanistan ....and the USA over-reacts...while doing what we want it to do".
Aside from not being a real word, "backfiring" is also inappropriate in that it assumes the official rationale for the national security state is valid, rather than a distracting McGuffin.
"Aside from not being a real word, 'backfiring'..." ?????
back·fire (bāk'fīr') n.
1. An explosion of prematurely ignited fuel or of unburned exhaust gases in an internal-combustion engine.
2. The backward escape of gases or cartridge fragments when a gun is fired.
3. A fire started in the path of an oncoming fire in order to deprive it of fuel and thereby control or extinguish it.
intr.v. back·fired, back·fir·ing, back·fires
1. To explode in the manner of or make the sound of a backfire.
2. To start or use a backfire in extinguishing or controlling a forest fire.
3. To produce an unexpected, undesired result.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
PS: Don't mean to nitpick, and I generally agree with your point. But I found it ironic that you'd impugn the word "backfired" as insufficiently real in a comment containing the term "McGuffin".
· Yr Obd't Servant
"Post-9/11" broad surveillance powers were never put in place to prevent terrorism -- but to clamp down on political enemies. The US is not really worried about terrorism -- its mission is to expand its global power, and create a global corporate state. If they really wanted to prevent terrorism, they would at least ask why would people want to commit violent acts in the US. But then they would find it's because of US imperialism and foreign policy; but that is non-negotiable. And so the game of one-up-manship continues, and the power of the state grows ... at least until it collapses, which all entities based on imbalance are destined to do.
you are correct of course -- along with much of the rest of the world's opinion - based on history and facts that the TRUE cause of terrorism against the USA is ITS own foreign policies .
BUT that is a big NO NO in america.
in america - it is easier to believe that "they hate us for our freedoms"....
and so it goes.
All corrupt organism become fertilizer.
Has anyone seriously studied the footage showing Dubya's reaction to learning of 9/11 while reading "My Pet Goat"?
-30-
Yes. It seemed clear that he was not alarmed one bit. That the SS allowed him to remain at the school--a fact announced quite publicly and against SS guidelines--tells me that the SS knew Bush to be in zero danger, although I don't know exactly how the SS knew.
Yes, when I first saw the footage on 9/11 or 9/12 it seemed bizarre.
Viewing it more recently he looks like a little boy acting "not me, I didn't do it; look here's my alibi".
you know, i was just thinking about this moment this very morning on my way to the bus stop...
what we were seeing was the complete disengagement, the time-and-space-altering suspension, of a mind actively, currently implicit in the unredeemable murder of thousands of innocent people...'he' was not in that school, 'he' was in New York and Washington...this is the stuff of Liddy and Hemingway...of the men that truly operate at the global level...the clubs these men belong to, the social groups they form, concentrate all forms of wealth and power in decisions that are deadly to millions...
we were seeing one man executing such a decision...an execution that required a number of agonizingly long minutes to carry out...
also, remember the odd, forever moment of silence during the subsequent debates when this man was questioned about this event...nothing but stony silence...
understandably horrific to most, but, sadly, eminently feared and respected by a select, powerful few...
I saw that...in an X-Files episode. They were controlling the masses thru their TVs and the water. Ha ha! We've now reached that tragic state of affairs in which life imitates art.
Rather than pursuing the hoary expplanation of "failing to connect the dots" etc why not consider a much more likely alternative. The would-be underpants bomber got as far as he did because he was allowed to do so, and indeed the evidence suggests that he received more than a little help, being shepherded through Dutch customs without a passport. That just doesn't happen in the normal course of events.
Then ask the standard question: qui bono?
It isn't rocket science to see the connection between this allegedly Yemeni connected individual and the current push by the US military to expand their already existing activities in Yemen, propping up, yet again, a corrupt dictator and incidentally gaining access to one of the world's major choke points in the oil trade.
After all, this is not the first time the "intelligence" community has pulled this trick.
If Americans weren't so dumbed down they would see this exercise for what it is: a classic false flag operation to further expand the empire.
yes, exactly. He was ushered through passport control and security in Amsterdam and placed on the flight.
It never ceases to amaze me how the "masses" panic and lose their heads when something like this, shall we say "thwarted", attack takes place.
The statistical likelihood of any American being a victim of terrorism is lower than the likelihood of getting struck by lightning.
Yet, we don't see the mass media, politicians on the left and the right calling for thousands of lightning rods to be installed across the United States.
Seriously, the likelihood of getting struck by lightning is equal or somewhat higher than the likelihood of falling victim to terrorism.
SO WHY IS EVERYONE pooping THEIR PANTS?
But I bet you do see lots of churches with lighting rods on their roofs, no?
And if you folks thought that the government has actually LEARNED anything in the last 9 years, you'd be mistaken.
In his recently published book The Shadow Factory, James Bamford, writes that the NSA is building a massive, gigantic facility out in Salt Lake that will house thousands upon thousands of terabytes of data tapped into and intercepted from Qwest's nearby telecommunication hub where billions of credit card transactions, e-mails, telephone calls pass through each day.
YOUR TAX dollars AT WORK.
Don't you feel safe now?
"And if you folks thought that the government has actually LEARNED anything in the last 9 years, you'd be mistaken."
You don't give 'our' incompentent government enough credit. They have learned plenty. They have learned that they can do anything they want: invade, bomb, repress, spy, steal and, we the sheeple, will take it all laying down.
Ans stay tune. There's more to come!
People, you are all rationalizing this too much. Stop trying to figure out how such a gross act of negligence could have happened. This event was staged. There is proof, do 5 minutes of searching to find it.
Backfiring of the surveillance state? Where? How? Who? When?