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Comment by chipperyman573 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you, but let's play devil's advocate here. How many attempted terrorist attacks were stopped? That 30 might've been 31 or 30,000,000. We'll never know for sure for two reasons:

1. Anything that could remotely reveal a method of surveillance wouldn't be included in these numbers

2. It's pretty hard to define an "attempted" attack - a lot of attempts might be thwarted in the planning, etc... What about something that wasn't intended to stop a group, but did? Or maybe an underground group that wasn't being monitored, how do we know the gov't stopped them?

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That does not comport with the high-profile extradition and prosecution of a teenager who was lured into translating documents for a fake terrorist organization. The FBI trumpets their results, even the most trivial concocted results. If they stopped a terrorist plot, there would be a press release. There is no hidden cache of thwarted terrorists going unprosecuted.

The terrorist problem is exactly as we see it. Tiny.

I think they want to be the NSA or something.

We know how many terrorist plots succeeded in the US. The FBI issues press releases when they stop some plot at an earlier stage. So we should have a good idea of how many terrorists plots have been stopped per actual incident.

Bombings in the US are way down. Most terrorist incidents in the last 10 years are shootings. The last big bombing was the Boston Marathon, in 2013, and that was two brothers working alone, so intel wouldn't have helped. The last organized plot was in 2009, aimed at the NYC subway and some UK targets. That was allegedly foiled by intel into Al Qaeda communications.

Since 9/11, terrorism in the US [1] has been much less of a problem than routine mass shootings.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States... [2] http://www.shootingtracker.com

Lot's of "successfully prevented" attacks are actually alienated, lonely men that are radicalized by the FBI, and given terror assignments by the Bureau so that they can be arrested as "lone wolf attackers":

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-...

"We know how many terrorist plots succeeded in the US"

Do we? Are all terrorist plots obvious? Surely there are successful terrorist plots that have succeeded that we are unaware of.

I am saying, I doubt it's so black & white.

If nobody notices an act of terrorism, it's not terrorism.

Can you (or a populace) be influenced by something you are unaware of? If so, you can be a victim of an act terrorism without knowing of the act.

If a terrorist shoots my sister, and nobody knows it was a terrorist plot, the destabilization and other negative effects are still there. I will be afraid, perhaps not of ISIS, but I will generally be terrified that someone might shoot me too.

Terrorism is not so simple. Thinking that all terrorism must be some extreme, singular act seems short-sighted. What is the terrorist's goal?

Terrorism can be subtle and long-term.

Edit: What terrifies you? Did terrorists exclusively create this (threat of terror)? My point is, does a terrorist exclusively create terror... or do these terrorists have a broader goal beyond simple terrorism?

> Surely there are successful terrorist plots that have succeeded that we are unaware of.

No. Terrorists even take credit for things they had nothing to do with. The goal of a terrorist is to strike fear into the population by committing crimes in the most public way possible. Secrecy of the result doesn't serve this goal. The other reason to publicize is for recruiting purposes.

We certainly know the number of successful plots. Failed plots and fizzles, perhaps not.

Terrorists are incapable of misdirection? I think you are over-simplifying the intent of the terrorists...

Sounds like you need to read up on the actual intent of terrorists: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror

Thanks for the link (I love gwern). Terrorist organizations are always evolving though. For example, the ongoing PR campaign by ISIS. The PR is creating terrorists but there is never a singular attack. I would say the PR campaign is successful, but many people are unaware of it, compared to 9/11.

My point is, terrorism is not exclusively a single, concentrated moment of terror. Some terrorist plots are more subtle and long-term.

Do we?

Yes, we do. If you don't know about a terrorist plot, it is not succesful.

Let's say you are unaware of a terrorist act, can you be influenced by it?

http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective

Frankly, terrorists have been around for a long time, and they didn't do shit before 9/11 and they haven't done shit since.

If there were an alternate world where 9/11 happened once a month every month (so, 36k people die due to terrorism every year), that would be equivalent to approximately the US car accidents per year (well, technically that's only ten 9/11's worth, not twelve, but whatever).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

And remember, 9/11 only happened once in the last century, so if statistics hold up we're good to go, and we have a spare few billions per year that were funded the TSA.

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