Eavesdropping Helpful Against Terrorist Plot [UPDATED]

AcidPenguin9873 writes "The New York Times reports that the U.S. government's ability to eavesdrop on personal communications helped break up a terrorist plot in Germany. The intercepted phone calls and emails revealed a connection between the plotters and a breakaway cell of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad Union. What does this mean for the future of privacy in personal communications? From the article: '[Director of national intelligence Mike McConnell's] remarks also represent part of intensifying effort by Bush administration officials to make permanent a law that is scheduled to expire in about five months. Without the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Mr. McConnell said the nation would lose "50 percent of our ability to track, understand and know about these terrorists, what they're doing to train, what they're doing to recruit and what they're doing to try to get into this country.'" Update: 09/13 12:59 GMT by J : See followup story.

Comments

Re:So..?

[MyLongNickName]

I am for the gov't having the ability to wiretap. I am against the gov't doing this without a proper check to their power.

NY Times did not report that

[guanxi]

The NY Times reported that the Director of National Intelligence, Gen. Mike McConnell, *claimed* that the law helped. It's a claim by an official with a vested interest.

That doesn't make it false (or true), but it's much different than a statement of fact.

Who's against eavesdropping with oversight?

[Vellmont]

Very few people are against court sanctioned and oversought eavesdropping. What people are upset about is eavesdropping without warrants, on US citizens. As far as I can tell from the very brief article, this isn't a case where warrantless wiretapping, or data mining occoured.

Re:So..?

[Xonstantine]

Regardless, the laws and policies of the US are a reflection of the majority of people who comprise it. You exactly missed my point. The purpose of things like a Constitution in a constitutional republic is to protect the rights of the minority, since the majority very seldom has problems getting it's will reflected in policies and laws and enforcing them on the minority. The Constitution defines the powers and sets limitations on the Federal government, and in some cases, the state governments. Over time, the Federal government has decided that it's powers are unlimited and has ignored the limitations as defined in what is essentially a legal contract with the citizens of this country. They are in breach of contract, but since they own the courts and they own the guns, who's gonna stop them?

Re:So..?

[MrNaz]

Something that people fail to understand is that government has no interest nor the resources to monitor the actions of those that mean no harm.

I assure you it does, and it does. And a government that intends to relegate the vast majority of the population to the status of "labor pool" has an interest in what *everybody* has to say about it. The best way to stop revolutionary dissent is catching it while it's still dinner-table conversation. For instance, imagine if the British had known of a certain little Tea Party that was being planned while it was still just in the stages of two guy chatting about a nice idea. Had the British colonial powers had ubiquitous eavesdropping throughout the colonial lands, history would have turned out very, very differently. Of course, your sentiments indicate that you trust the government implicitly, and will likely consider this view to be crazy left wing hippie talk.

I'm willing to give up some rights to prevent it.

You can't be serious? You're either too young or too dumb to understand the concept of a slippery slope. You're also obviously unaware of the fact that more innocent people die in car crashes every year than died in terrorist attacks in all of the 20 century. Where are the billions in declaring war on people who don't wear seat belts? Would you support police cameras in your garage to check that you were wearing your seatbelt before you left your driveway? Perspective is a wonderful thing. Pity you don't have any.