You’re wrong about these methods not working to hunt down terrorists, as several terrorists (specifically in New York City) were planning on perpetrating massacres, [useless loaded language fluff removed].
Which ones? There were a whole bunch:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nyp---REFERENCE: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/pr/plots_targeting_nyc.shtml,
Oh. I see. I had literally googled "nyc terror attack" to try and see which one you were referring to and found that exact link, but turns out, all of them! So, first off, if you're trying to prove that guantanamo bay and warrantless internet surveillance have stopped terrorists attacks then you've not done so. Everything listed in there looks like the pinnacle of purely conventional police work and intelligence gathering through warrants. Nobody is arguing this is a bad thing, absolutely nobody! It's what we already have.
There were only two quotes that came remotely close to implying warrantless internet searches, but neither of them actually imply it.
"The plot was uncovered in its early stages through a year-long FBI investigation that included the monitoring of internet chat rooms frequented by extremists"
Joining an internet chat room doesn't require a warrant of any sort.
"His social media activity and internet searches became increasingly consumed by jihadist propaganda"
No warrant is needed to get social media data. Warrants are normally required to get internet searches, though jihadist propaganda on his social media is definitely more than enough to convince a judge of probable cause for a warrant.
Ultimately, without them and without giving these agencies the right to track those down (only if they’re under suspicion and have legitimate evidence proving that they’re about to do something) we’re doomed. [More loaded language fluff] If it weren’t for us catching on quickly enough (like we’ve been doing for a few years), these attacks would go on.
Again, nobody is arguing against what's already fundamentally allowed and has been done before. People are arguing against warrantless invasions of privacy and censorship. You're right that if we literally shut down the FBI's ability to do anything at all we would be screwed, but nobody is saying we need to do that.
I’d also like you to rethink one of your statements for a moment. Are you suggesting that if a criminal perpetrates a mass massacre (say this criminal kills hundreds of innocent people), that they should still be given a fair trial and treated just as every other individual would be treated?
If so, I think your character has to be questioned.
Everyone deserves a fair trial, no matter the person. This is, again, a fundamental human right, article 10 in my previous source if you want to look it up. When the US chooses to completely ignore this human right is completely subjective, and, as I clearly provided evidence for, it has only led to hundreds of people being needlessly tortured, often for several years on end. Imagine that, being plucked out of your home town for absolutely no reason and held against your will in a prison where you're relentlessly tortured for years and years, when you've done absolutely nothing and know no information. Only with a fair trial and evidence being presented to a court can it be determined if further investigation is justified, that's why it's a damn human right in the first place.
I did not address the following statement as that's a discussion for a different topic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/06/18/nsa-head-surveillance-helped-thwart-more-than-50-terror-attempts/,
This is clearly cherrypicked evidence. If you just google "Has nsa spying stopped terrorist attacks" you get thousands upon thousands of results that say no, and a few that say yes. Either way, the claim that it's stopped 50+ terrorist attacks is completely baseless.
http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidencehttp://www.propublica.org/documents/item/902454-judge-leon-ruling#document/p62It's not like the internet isn't already monitored in several ways. Google, Bing, and many search engines track your search history and methods to deliver ads. Most YouTube videos have to be approved before they are even public.
Facebook basically knows everything about you if your actively on it, liking pages, posts, games, and whatever else
And that's why so many people refuse to use many google services (like searching) and facebook, including myself. I don't really see why anyone would try to put legitimately private videos on youtube, I mean... you can just upload it to literally any file sharing site, lol.
