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Larry, I lack the requisite paranoia and bias to draw the same conclusions you have. Can you please spell out for a dumb guy like me how running a phone number through a database relates to the NSA and Bush. I assume you're vaguely referring to illegal wiretaps that circumvented the FISA courts? I surmise that your vague wording is intended to imply that practices developed by the Bush Administration were responsible for preventing this attack and that you hope people will be too stupid/lazy to figure out that they are unrelated?

This crime was thwarted by two things: (1) average citizens being aware of their surroundings and dutifully reporting a suspicious vehicle, and (2) an average street cop being well trained and reacting appropriately.

Terrorism won't be eliminated by more wiretaps, more law enforcement, more x-ray machines, or TSA agents.

<irony>Why do you people always think more government is the answer?</irony>

Mike, the attack was not thwarted. It simply failed. It appears that a great deal of data (data that most people would assume is private) was mined very quickly in the government's successful effort to capture the perpetrator. My point was simply that nobody's screaming about the Obama administration doing this sort of thing. And they wont.

Oh, and to spell it out for you. All that "data base" work, that's the NSA. It's also reported that they were tapping his cell phone almost immediately after the attack. Google it.

I fucking hate politics...I hate political correctness.... I long for the days when the bad guy met the good guy in the street and it was over in a minute and there were no subtlness to it. There was a reason that films of those days were in black and white.....

What did authorities know about Faisal Shahzad?
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
05/05/10 9:02 AM EDT
Deep inside a New York Times profile of the accused Times Square bomber — “From Suburban Father to a Terrorism Suspectâ€

Data mining is not what Bush was criticized for. He was criticized for the policy of using an organizations who's mission is gathering intelligence on foreign countries (NSA) to spy on US citizens, and doing so without a warrant. The problem is the warrant. There is a venue for quickly and secretly getting a warrant (FISA Courts) so that you can legally surveil a criminal suspect, but the Bush administration wanted to get around it because they couldn't stand those pesky "checks and balances". This was one of many successful attempts by that administration to consolidate power in the executive branch and the Congress and Media just let it happened for fear of being labeled "unpatriotic".

You're trying to make a connection that just isn't there.

I do think it's interesting that the authorities know about these guys before they attack, but they still fail to stop them. So, we willingly forfeit our civil liberties to the government to "protect" us, and they still fail to protect us. Why, then, are you so eager to let the government spy on you? It's all fine as long as you're not the terrorist, right? What about these domestic militia groups? Should the govm'nt be able to spy on them without a warrant? What about us? Should the govm'nt be able to spy on anyone who posts on the internet anything negative about President Obama without a warrant? How would we even know who they're spying on if we have no court looking over their shoulder?

If we want to live in a free society, there are risks with that. We/the government can't control everything, we can't stop every attack, no matter how many cell phones we monitor. It's just like climbing safety...people are talking crazy shit about belay certifications and all this bullshit. CLIMBING IS DANGEROUS, life is dangerous...I'm pretty sure the mortality rate is damn near 100%. You can't control everything.

mike_anderson wrote:If we want to live in a free society, there are risks with that. We/the government can't control everything, we can't stop every attack, no matter how many cell phones we monitor. It's just like climbing safety...people are talking crazy shit about belay certifications and all this bullshit. CLIMBING IS DANGEROUS, life is dangerous...I'm pretty sure the mortality rate is damn near 100%. You can't control everything.

some good stuff there, mike.

wow, a terrorist in Times Square- I was thinking it must be someone ashamed of their country- I could only figure, it must be michelle obama and then when it fortunately was a failed attempt due to the ineptness of the perp, well michelle married into ineptness - eff the obamas

all of this shit is stupid terrorist are gonna keep on attacking us as long as we continue to be the same america that bullies everyone around for having "weapons of mass destruction" well then why arent we attacking russia japan and several other countries bush is evil and america fucking sucks get use to it or kill yourself

did you by chance go to a public school in Kentucky?

mike anderson said: ""Data mining is not what Bush was criticized for. He was criticized for the policy of using an organizations who's mission is gathering intelligence on foreign countries (NSA) to spy on US citizens, and doing so without a warrant. The problem is the warrant. There is a venue for quickly and secretly getting a warrant (FISA Courts) so that you can legally surveil a criminal suspect, but the Bush administration wanted to get around it because they couldn't stand those pesky "checks and balances"

That was the rap, anyway. But, for some reason, the Obama administration has made exactly the same argument as Bush made on this matter in court. So is Obama just as evil as Bushhitler, or were we fed a bill of goods during the presidential campaign? I suspect the latter.