FBI Chief Robert Mueller’s has injected himself into the growing debate over the “merits” of mass surveillance of the American public today, declaring to the House Judicial Oversight Committee that spying like NSA PRISM might conceivably have stopped 9/11.
Mueller cited that one of the hijackers made a phone call from San Diego, and that the call would’ve been intercepted and “acted upon” to uncover the plot. He also claimed that leaving PRISM intact would “prevent another Boston.”
Congressmen were quick to reject this argument, noting that PRISM was in place during the Boston Marathon bombings and did absolutely nothing to prevent them, and indeed that the past examples of PRISM “working” are dubious at best.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D – NY) said that subpoenaing data on every phone call as conceivably “relevant” made a mockery of the word, while Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R – UT) said that meta-data about suspects movements being acquired without a warrant was unconstitutional. Meuller claimed that never occurred to him.
The most memorable exchange though came from Rep. Louis Gohmert (R – TX), who accused Mueller of “over-classifying” information about US policy, to which Mueller refused to respond, suggesting that question was better asked in “a classified briefing.”
Yeah cause trading freedom for stability is all about what America is supposed to be about isn't it? If you're going to take a freedom away to save lives, why not take away cigarettes or fast food, both of which kill WAY more people than terrorism?
Yeah totally, just like it stopped the Boston attacks, Padilla, the underwear bomber, the Iranian car salesman, the Miami guys, etc. Just keep parading these liars in front of the country and we'll find out who's who.
Add: ***DIDN'T PREVENT 911***, didn't find Osama — who was no longer operational — for 11 years, and to this day hasn't found Zawahiri, the current head of operations of al Quaida — who is operational.
Heck, Bush was already getting briefings about "Al Qaida About to Attack America with Airplanes" a month before 9/11. It wasn't lack of warnings that failed to stop 9/11.
So far, all I've seen this surveillance stop is to keep some British tourists from visiting L.A. after they used slang that it would 'be bomb' to be on their upcoming vacation.
Oh, but wait … it does seem to be very good in letting Obama do his Nixon-wannabee spying on any journalist that might want to write a story about him.
Remember ….. these are the same agencies who didn't see either the fall of the Berlin Wall nor the Arab Spring coming. The first with the height of Reagan-funded cold war spying aimed at the Soviet union, and the second with this modern system aimed straight at the Middle East (supposedly). Pretty much everything surprises these guys, no matter how big their budget is nor how many surveillance toys they say they need.
Of course, the problem with information collecting is that someone has to analyze it and come up with the correct answers, and then the bureaucracy has to actually pay attention to the NSC memos that say "OBL is about to hijack planes and attack the US" which already existed a month before 9/11.
But oh, we have to keep everything you say and write recorded on file just in case we want to go back and dig it out and try to use it against you in a Kafka-esque court someday in the future, should we ever decide we don't like you. So, make sure you never do anything like support a free society where power resides with we the people and not with some secret police spy agency.
Mueller is the last one to talk about surveillance and enforcement. Sibel Edmonds discovered espionage within the FBI itself over 10 years ago, and was gagged for reporting it. Very little was done to clean up the problem and some of it exists to this day. And don't forget Colleen Rowley, the Minnesota office FBI agent who was barred by the national office from pursuing the Mohamed Atta case. Mueller is a hack who got credit for cleaning up the FBI when all he did was cover up the innumerable messes (and internal crimes) and put a nice face on it.
The Minnesota FBI agents had detained Moussai days before 9-11and a search of his laptop would have exposed and prevented the plot from occurring. A senior FBI official specifically prevented the Minnesota agents from looking into the laptops contents. After 9-11, Mueller gave this senior official a promotion.
Maybe, just maybe, a little bit of cooperation from Mossad and it's "art students" (or whatever they called themselves) might have prevented 9/11.
Maybe just paying frikkin' attention to REAL threats instead of planning wars of choice — Iraq — would have prevented 911.
Knowing about 9/11 didn't prevent 9/11. In the same way that 10 years of intercepting phone calls and email didn't prevent Boston.
And guess what, the next outrage will be a surprise, too.
I am sure that there was already a massive surveillance program at the time the United States was already monitoring as much of the world as it could. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks…. Could any of these theories be correct? Given the lies that we see today all the more reason to be concerned.
Prevent another Boston , it didn't prevent the Boston America just had, to Prevent another Boston would mean the NSA would have to be even more intrusive!
It might be called trading freedom for stupidity. Or perhaps as the Russians are saying the us is getting strategic insanity.
"… and that the call would’ve been intercepted and “acted upon” to uncover the plot…"
I seem to remember that the FBI (and CIA) had plenty of "actionable intelligence" that they could have acted upon to foil the 9/11 terrorists. I also seem to remember hearing that, well, they didn't act on that intelligence – Coleen Rowley ring a bell? How about Harry Samit?
Of course, if you don't want to act on the intelligence, well, then you won't…
LYING FUCK! They DELIBERATELY didn't act on the information they had! When the FBI is determined there will be a terrorist attack – there WILL BE a terrorist attack. (just ask Coleen Rowley)
Ha ha ha ha. Hearing from these clowns is like watching a Three Stooges short. Except – they were intentional comedies.
They already knew enough to write Bush a memo … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined…
Paying attention to the FBI reporting the weird training of some Saudis who only wanted to learn how to fly big passenger planes, but not land them, would have prevented 9-11 too. Somewhere in the cumbersome chain of command, the information got buried and not acted upon.
We had the intelligence that we would be attacked and how.
If you are old enough to remember NORAD then you know we had the capability to protect oour airspace.
6 months prior to 9-11, NORAD Directed a fighter jet to the plane carrying golfer Payne Stewart when his flight had deviated from the flight plan after only 15 minutes. Where was NORAD on 9-11?
If anyone buys the bull that we are being feed by these traitors then there is no hope of fixing this problem and we are all doomed to become slaves our forefathers fought for.
All it takes is a little common sense, (Today it is referred to as "Uncommon Sense") to realize that we have been duped by those that have been elected to represent us.
They only represent those that provide the funds for their re-elections. You can't even trust the vote count because the machines that count the votes are owned by the same people that have been buying the influence of those that were elected to serve us. I didn't vote for Bush and I didn't vote for McCain or Romney but I do consider myself a Republican. I don't want the church controlling anyone anymore than I want the government controlling me. I am a veteran that served during the cold war and held a Top Secret clearance and I applaud those like Mr. Snowden that is bringing light to the darkness that has engulfed our country. Government is the problem and we better start getting it together soon or your grandchildren will be asking what is was like to be truly free!!
Mass surveillance could have stopped 9/11? What a joke.
9/11 was largely committed by illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If we had only enforced the laws against illegal immigration 9/11 could never have happened. If we had not given legal US drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants many of them could not even have gotten on the planes! The notion that we needed to tap the phone and read the emails of very US citizen and legal permanent resident to stop 9/11 is absurd.
Funny how the NSA demands the right to know everything about law-abiding Americans – but the government refuses to use information on legal residency in this country to enforce the immigration laws. And yet no such problems when poor Americans try and send their kids to rich school districts…
As far as the Boston Marathon bombings, well, the answer there is to not subsidize the immigration of radical islamists from countries where most people hate the US, without at least some kind of background check – and maybe pay attention when the Russians warn them about us.
Oh, but doing basic background checks might slow down the rate of immigration, which would stop pushing wages down, and stop pushing profits up, and that would never do. You have to have your priorities.
Mueller’s assertion presumably is based on the monkeys, typewriters and works of Shakespeare hypothesis.
If everyone on the planet shot themselves in the head on Sept 10th it could have prevented 9-11. Does that make it a good idea?
Odd he would say that because the memo warning about the hijackers being in the U.S. sat on an FBI desk for months.
Mass surveillance could not have stopped 9/11 because all credible evidence proves 9/11 was an inside job. So spy chief Muller, who is well aware of this fact, is simply blowing smoke for the benefit of the ignorant herd who are more comfortable with lies and deception than with facts and reality.
fbi corruption & incompetence invite the nest 911.
Surveillance is the simplistic cover story; in fact the fbi/cia/nsa program is used to surveil, harass, intimidate, threaten, force suicide, murder selected Targets.
''tyranny legal'' and crime a virtue: http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v194/__show…
Congress sinks to all time low by fearing the fbi/cia and selling out civil liberties:
State Department and fbi's "Jimmy the Snake Duval"
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2013/07/423972.s…
The United States of America is unworthy to defend:
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2012/11/07/united-sta…