NSA's Giuliani Justification: Noun, Verb, 9-11

Borepatch links to both a blog and a letter from NSA insiders. You should read all of them.

I mentioned several months ago that the NSA's list of "number of terrorist plots we've prevented" had shrunk from the mid-fifties to maybe one. The NSA's current justification is "so what if we can't show it's been helpful to spy on all y'all? We still want to."

Like almost everyone except Emperor Alexander, his lackeys, and toadies such as DiFi and Rep. Rodgers, I am truly sick of the "noun, verb, 9-11" justification.

Because of this: It is all bullshit. And it's as wasteful and as effective as the Maginot Line.

If you will think back to the investigations and committees that looked into the events leading up to 9-11, you might remember this: The NSA had all of the information that they needed to crack the plot in advance. So did the FBI. The problem wasn't that they didn't have the data, the problem was that they failed to make use of it.

In the parlance of the time, both the NSA and the FBI failed to "connect the dots".

They didn't need more dots. They couldn't draw the lines between the ones that they had.

But is it really the case that the U.S. intelligence community didn't have the dots in the lead up to 9/11? Hardly.
In fact, the intelligence community provided repeated strategic warning in the summer of 9/11 that al Qaeda was planning a large-scale attacks on American interests.
Here is a representative sampling of the CIA threat reporting that was distributed to Bush administration officials during the spring and summer of 2001:
-- CIA, "Bin Ladin Planning Multiple Operations," April 20
-- CIA, "Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent," June 23
-- CIA, "Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays," July 2
-- CIA, "Threat of Impending al Qaeda Attack to Continue Indefinitely," August 3

The NSA's justification for the massive spying on Americans is now "well, we might need to read your personal shit someday". It's all bullshit. And fortunately, some legislators are coming to realize that. Sen Heinrich, for one, was formerly in the House of Representatives, and he is calling "bullshit" on the pro-NSA's statists who have been claiming that everyone was fully briefed on what the NSA has been doing.

It is past time to rein in the NSA, the FBI, the DEA and, for that matter, the local po-po. And if they won't come to heel, it's time to start using the power of the Federal (and state) purse on them.