People do go to their doctors to check if they have no rsik of getting beast cancer.
It is called mammography.

I guess people who say intelligence don't help prevent attacks also negate that such visits to their doctors are useful and that vaccines are worst than the illness..

Newbe, I wonder what you have to hide that you are so "scared" of surveillance?
In case you're not aware, the majority of people killed in the Paris attack were under age 30. The "current batch of scared old people so well represented on this forum" aren't necessarily afraid THEY will be killed, but rather concerned for those to follow us, and the WEST in general. The old people won't "live forever", as you so aptly put it - - but neither will YOU!

Cow: >>Nevertheless, we are told that intelligence activities are needed to protect us from attacks in the first place.<<

I'm not sure I follow you. Are you saying surveillance, etc., are only justified and effective if they result in 100% stoppage of terrorist activities?

New: >> More information doesn't equal safety, it equals control.<<

Are you saying they're mutually exclusive?

vincenzo:

I did not mean to say that.
I am just not impressed with the effectiveness of surveillance when there are 129 souls to mourn.

>>I am just not impressed with the effectiveness of surveillance when there are 129 souls to mourn.<<

Then, of course, the question is: what would impress you? If not the complete eradication of terrorism, then "only" 128 souls? Eight? Six? One?

If you found out they stopped 99 potential attacks and didn't stop one, irrespective of the number lost, would that impress you? Because we never know how many they stopped, only how many they didn't stop. And you're basing your assessment on the one.

Exactly, Vincenzo. Who knows how many attacks have been prevented since 9/11?
There can never be 100%.

Wrong!

In "No Place to Hide" Glenn Greenwald states that no terrorist attack was ever foiled in the US because of the collection of "meta data."

Almost all terrorist attacks that were foiled were done so because of informants-- people turning in their relatives or neighbors, observant bystanders. The rest by astute police work.


Do you really want the US government knowing that you had an abortion, have HIV, whom you sleep with?

Some of you are so daft I don't know how you make it to the toilet in the morning.

You must wear cow bells.



Thin

CNN very plainly states that the terrorists in Saint Denis were caught because the police were listening in to their phone calls.

Not so daft after all.

There is a huge difference between vacuuming up everyone's phone calls and targeted surveillance.

Sue: >>Who knows how many attacks have been prevented since 9/11?<<

Funny you should bring that up. The French just announced that since April, they stopped six attacks by using surveillance and other techniques.

So if you believe them, then you have to conclude that just in the last 6 months, they've had an 85% success rate.

Much of UK is covered by CCTV, although this is an invasion of privacy it's been fundamental in solving many of the murders on Inspector Morse.

Even morse by Lewis.

Thin, Glenn Greenwald might be your "Oracle of Truth", but certainly not mine.
Since he has moved to Brazil hopefully he feels safer there, away from the prying eyes of the U.S. government.

Even more by Lewis .

Bloody iplod.

CNN as a source of information. :-)

"privacy savvy" ah, you mean "think differently". It will always be that the young think the old are out of touch and the old think the young are not aware we've seen it all before.

"Some of you are so daft I don't know how you make it to the toilet in the morning." well at least fodorites get to this point in the decay of the argument rather than that on Al Jazeera. Still "toilet"! I don't know where to look.

Hugs to all, :-)

Meta data involves taking time, place and phone numbers of calls to correlate the network of conversations. Your phone companies, every single one of them, take this information for billing, infrastructure planning and rate adjustments. They don't take your actual call information. This is the meta-data the NSA has been getting.

Also, How is walking down a public street, in full view of everyone somehow considered private?

<How is walking down a public street, in full view of everyone somehow considered private?>
Are you serious? Did you flunk civics? Were you raised in East Germany?

Honestly, "daft" is a kind word for this level of ignorance. The discussion of privacy here is just depressing.

Read Greenwald, as Thin suggests. Or Orwell, for eff's sake!

And here I thought people left the lounge to avoid the arguments.

I know what daft means. I also know what private means. Walking down the street opposite me, walking the other direction gives YOU the right to privacy and not have me look at you?

Maybe I'm otherwise confused. I've always heard, from my mother many years ago to not go out in public looking like that. She was wrong, I should not have been going out in private looking like that?

Talk about daft. If you don't want people looking at you, stay in your rooms. You walk down a PUBLIC street, I, along with any other person can, (and often do) look at you. Sorry for invading your privacy.

BTW, I've read Orwell. I don't find cameras any more prying than the eyes of a police officer standing next to me. I find that LESS intimidating.

"And here I thought people left the lounge to avoid the arguments"

I banned myself from the lounge a couple of years ago and only occasionally miss it. Threads like this one remind me why I did it.

I left the lounge to avoid the privacy issues.