[IsThisObvious]

> Mind you, I am not defending the NSA strategy, I don't know if it is justifiable, I am just saying that Greenwald doesn't make any effort to let some opposing views to be presented.

Here's some fun statistics:

There are about 30,000 gun related deaths a year in the United States (19000 suicide, 11000 murders).

There are about another 30,000 vehicle related deaths a year in the United States.

There are about 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks - the deadliest act of terrorism perpetrated against the United States.

Are you saying that we should use the massive spying apparatus - including invading cellphone calls and emails - to stop even one third of murders? How about stop one sixth of suicides before they happen?

Because that would save more Americans than stopping a 9/11 scale attack every year would do - which is more than the NSA is claimed to have done.

In reality, it would take 10 9/11 scale attacks on the US each and every year to rival the number of deaths caused by guns.

Do you support using the government spy apparatus to stop these gun deaths? If not, why support something that isn't appropriate for a /larger/ problem to solve a small one?

I think most Americans panicked when they felt attacked, and became total cowards - as did their leadership at the time.

The correct response to terrorism is simply to shrug it off and ignore it (or at least limit yourself to prudent measures) - the deaths, strictly speaking, are a statistical blip on the radar - but the damage you can do to your civil liberties and society at large can last decades and impact generations of an entire nation.

tl;dr: America got sucker punched, and just like a bitch, got all fearful and cowardly about how it acted. The NSA spying is a sign of that fear and cowardice (possibly being used to nefarious ends by people exploiting it).

[greyman]

Hm, but shouldn't we also count thwarted attacks into your statistics? (I don't believe no deaths were prevented by such a massive apparatus). But as I said, I don't support anything, I am not even American, but with such a huge issue (I mean that "collect it all" thing) - which doesn't seems to be easy to get rid of - I would just expect a more broad discussion.

[twoodfin]

Number of people identified as having been killed by NSA surveillance: 0.

So no big deal: We should just shrug it off, right?

Obviously we worry about more things in this society than body counts, like civil liberties and the liberty to live our lives out of the shadow of bombers.

[IsThisObvious]

> Obviously we worry about more things in this society than body counts, like civil liberties and the liberty to live our lives out of the shadow of bombers.

Yes, all it really takes to stop the terror of terrorism is to not play along by being scared of attacks.

It would take a 9/11 every month to cause as many deaths as gun violence... which we don't use the NSA approach to, because we realize that would massively destroy civil liberties.

If drastic measures aren't requires - if we can just shrug off as "freedom isn't free", "you need to let some bad things happen to ensure freedom", etc a 10x number of deaths - we're probably taking drastically the wrong approach by using the NSA style surveillance to battle terrorism.

This is literally us gutting out country on behalf of the terrorists - something they could never have hoped to achieve by force - because we're afraid and can't handle something dramatic happening now and then without loosing our heads.

That's childish and cowardly, as a society.