We have no idea what they actually did prevent, and a single case where they failed demonstrates little. Further, pointing out the failure in the Boston bombing is a poor counterpoint given that to many it would suggest that increased surveillance is necessary, not less.
I'm not American, so I can't really speak to the domestic angle. I am immensely concerned about the foreign angle, however -- if the US government can secretly demand information from firms like Google or Apple, that is extremely concerning from an espionage perspective (economic or otherwise). Every government of Canada employee involved in the F-35 procurement process (or the Keystone XL pipeline, or any other multinational discussion), for instance, hopefully don't carrying Android or iOS or Windows OS devices (back when Obama carried a Blackberry, a Microsoft rep pointed out how dangerous this was having the president carrying a foreign device. Every other nation on Earth needs to heed those words). Even if communications were end-to-end encrypted, simply knowing where each of the people were and who they communicated with -- without knowing the contents of those communications -- would provide simply enormous data to effectively flank any position.
It is ironic to look back to when Chinese firms like Huawei see great suspicion, when we know that the free and democratic United States may be just as dangerous.
Ugh.. what terrible reasoning. The absence of data is not somehow possible data.
>pointing out the failure in the Boston bombing is a poor counterpoint given that to many it would suggest that increased surveillance is necessary, not less.
It's actually a rather good counter point. It shows that the FBI/NSA/big brother already can't process all of the data it has in a meaningful amount of time. How does adding more data to sift through help? Unless there's some benevolent, magical AI that can pick terrorist patterns out of a colossal sea of data, I fail to see how more data is the solution.
When you don't HAVE the data, it is nonsense to make conclusions as if you have the data, which is exactly what you and others are doing. Terrible reasoning indeed.
shows that the FBI/NSA/big brother already can't process all of the data
Once again -- no data (you have absolutely no idea what data they have or don't have), but you can declare that the problem is processing data.
you have absolutely no idea what data they have or don't have
Well, that's not really true:
The FBI has confirmed that Russia alerted the agency in 2011 that Tsarnaev had ties to 'radical Islam' groups in his homeland. Homeland Security sources have also revealed the agency received tips in 2012 about his ties to extremists connected to a Boston mosque. (...) Tamerlan was said to have been named as one of the radicals that came to attention of an informant working with an agency attached to the Boston-area Joint Terrorism Task Force
> When you don't HAVE the data, it is nonsense to make conclusions as if you have the data, which is exactly what you and others are doing. Terrible reasoning indeed.
When you don't have the data and the data is kept completely hidden from you, the only reasonable course of thought is to assume that the data does not exist or is completely and totally flawed. When the NSA or gov't asserts that its data collection is protecting you, they must provide the evidence so that such a statement could be examined. If they do not provide such data, you can't assume anything about its existence or even its existence in the first place.
I'm not American, so I can't really speak to the domestic angle. I am immensely concerned about the foreign angle, however -- if the US government can secretly demand information from firms like Google or Apple, that is extremely concerning from an espionage perspective (economic or otherwise). Every government of Canada employee involved in the F-35 procurement process (or the Keystone XL pipeline, or any other multinational discussion), for instance, hopefully don't carrying Android or iOS or Windows OS devices (back when Obama carried a Blackberry, a Microsoft rep pointed out how dangerous this was having the president carrying a foreign device. Every other nation on Earth needs to heed those words). Even if communications were end-to-end encrypted, simply knowing where each of the people were and who they communicated with -- without knowing the contents of those communications -- would provide simply enormous data to effectively flank any position.
It is ironic to look back to when Chinese firms like Huawei see great suspicion, when we know that the free and democratic United States may be just as dangerous.