Hello Righty's:

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason we didn't catch the underpants bomber is because we have TOO MUCH information to sift through, rather than not enough?? I'm sure you're going to call for more of our privacy rights to be thrown away, so we can collect MORE information, but for what benefit? I'll tell you - NONE!

This attempt wasn't thwarted because we didn't KNOW enough. We KNEW plenty. We just couldn't see the needle because of all the hay... I suppose you think adding MORE hay will help. I think less would be better.

I assert, our founders knew that keeping the government OUT of our private lives was not only the right thing to do in terms of FREEDOM, it was the right thing to do in terms of SECURITY.

I don't know why you want to throw the like of Patrick Henry and George Washington under the bus, but you do...

excon

I'm not calling for "for more of our privacy rights to be thrown away." I say profile the hell out of people, but that just isn't in the Democrat's playbook. It might offend someone or make them uncomfortable, as if we have a right not to be offended and to be comfortable.

The Eunuchbomber wasn't caught because the system failed. If his own dad warns us and we ignore it we have a problem. Don't worry though, the feds are on top of things now, they've revoked his visa.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

The Eunuchbomber wasn't caught because the system failed. If his own dad warns us and we ignore it we have a problem.

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Hello again, Steve:

It looks like a failure to me... But, you and I don't see things the same way...

Here's an example... You and your righty's friends want us to RACIALLY profile people. If we did that, I agree with the Democrats. It would be counter productive, very much in the same vein as Gitmo. Besides, it wouldn't protect us...

We DO need to profile people, though. However, we should use their behavior or their criminal background as the guide we profile by - NOT their race.

I'm a Jew. I went to Israel a couple years ago. I brought lots of baggage, cause I was going to stay for a while. My plans went awry, so I came back early.. The Israeli security people just didn't boringly go through the motions... They wanted to know what I was up to. They questioned me, and then they questioned me again. They wiped my bags continuously with that anti bomb cloth.. They profiled me because of my behavior, not because of my race...

Now, there's calls for these stupid machines that look into your pants... There's NO calls for facial recognition software, so they can identify EVERYBODY in the airport. They CAN do that, you know. The last time I flew, I was convinced they did that... If I were running things, I certainly WOULD have.

Stupid government...

excon

Yeah I see it differently, if the problem is primarily young, male Arabs we should be profiling young, male Arabs. If the problem is a country known to harbor terrorists we should profile that country... along with behavior, criminal background and intelligence.

Instead, we're searching grandmas and arresting white, male, independent war correspondents trying to return home for not disclosing their income.

Oh and those scanners, they'd almost certainly violate child porn laws.

Oh, and the problem isn't too much information, it's too much bureaucracy and the wrong focus.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Yeah I see it differently, if the problem is primarily young, male Arabs we should be profiling young, male Arabs.

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Hello again, Steve:

Psssst. The underpants bomber was Nigerian. They're black.

excon

The problem is not that there is too much information ;and it is not necessarily true that the system broke down . The system worked exactly as it was supposed to work. What was missing was people with initiative processing the information.

This happens often in the private sector. You can have the greatest operating system money can buy and have an automaton at the receiving end either unwilling ,unable ,or restricted procedurally in some way to best utilize the information available. I suspect the bigger the organization the worse this problem exists .

The intel communities employ really smart people so some of the reasons I mention can probably be eliminated . I would narrow it down to a procedure that prevents independent action. Abdulmutallab was put into the larger database because procedures dictated that . The people processing the information did not have the authority to move the information beyond that .It is typical bureaucracy I am talking about here.Most of them do not want the independent thinker and the motivated .They are usually put in their place early or removed from the position. The process lacks common sense. You can dot every i and cross every t and in the end it is useless information because it did not get to the people who were authorized to do anything with it.

In the end their answer then is to cast a broad net . It's like Captain Ahab hunting the Great White Whale by scrutinizing every minnow netted.


Profiling need not be by race or nation as the TSA has now proposed . Common sense profiling at the point of the attack would have given the well trained screener the ability to see that a single 20-something male boarding a plane with a pass he purchased with cash 17 minutes before the flight... with no luggage... after he had travelled from a nation where terrorists are known to train should be subject to extra scrutiny .

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

Psssst. The underpants bomber was Nigerian. They're black.

excon

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So I've heard. I did add something about profiling countries, which Obama has seemingly endorsed to a degree.