It's not about data collection; it's about data analysis. .. "Demands for even more surveillance miss the point. The problem is not obtaining data, it's deciding which data is worth analyzing and then interpreting it. Everyone already leaves a wide audit trail as we go through life, and law enforcement can already access those records with search warrants [and subpoenas]. The FBI quickly pieced together the terrorists' identities and the last few months of their lives, once they knew where to look. If they had thrown up their hands and said that they couldn't figure out who did it or how, they might have a case for needing more surveillance data. But they didn't, and they don't."
Don't forget old-fashioned intelligence gathering. Enough with the Echelon-like NSA programs where everything and anything gets sucked into an enormous electronic maw, never to be looked at again. Lots of Americans managed to become part of Al Qaeda (a 20-year-old Californian did it, for crying out loud); why weren't any of them feeding intelligence to the CIA? Get out in the field and do your jobs.
Organizations with investigative powers require constant oversight. If we want to formalize a domestic intelligence agency, we are going to need to be very careful about how we do it. Many of the checks and balances that Ashcroft is discarding were put in place to prevent abuse. And abuse is rampant -- at the federal, state, and local levels. Just because everyone is feeling good about the police today doesn't mean that things won't change in the future. They always do.
Highly recommended.
