I think I agree with you sentiment, but let me ask this:
If terrorism was being stopped, would you even know it? Said differently, maybe it is working. If it was, what would be the way that you would know that it is working?
If terrorism was being stopped, would you even know it? Said differently, maybe it is working. If it was, what would be the way that you would know that it is working?
If individual acts of terror are being prevented, but none of the people planning them are put in prison, and are free to walk the streets and try another plot, would you say those laws are effective? I wouldn't.
Maybe on a longer time horizon it won't work as well, but it's already been 20 years since 9/11.
Yes, because the feds brag about it nonstop on the rare occasions they actually nab somebody.
The government would never pass up an opportunity for good PR. They openly cheer when they assassinate foreign enemies don't forget, even when they're government officials.
Shouting successful secret missions just doesn't seem like something they would be doing as it could lead to the "enemy" learning ways and methods and what not. The only people they have to convince are the Gang of Eight.
Plenty of ways to take credit without revealing sensitive info.
Probably a decrease in successful terrorism attempts or an increase in thwarted terrorism attempts (with neither being attributed to something else instead). I don't think there's any value to this question though, since it can be used to justify literally anything. If a policy needs to prove its own value, then it should be constructed in a way that allows its value to be tracked.
As of 2011, the number was 40.
Is that high? Low? How many is that versus successful terrorist attacks?
They aren't minor plans either - they include carbombings, bombing buildings, targeted assassinations.
There is one where someone was sending money to al-Qaeda in Kashmir. That seems the least serious (as in it wasn't a planned attack on US soil).
Read this and contemplate using the Heritage Foundation as a source of truth in the future. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/limo-crash-ny-fbi-in...
There’s no way the security authorities are going to reveal sources and methods for actual plots.
My beef with the Heritage foundation is they present this as clear cut factual evidence while any thinking person, including federal judges overseeing the cases, is almost compelled to call out the nonsensical nature of the cases.
You’re not going to get any type of accounting for this stuff for 20-30 years when the decision makers are dead or retired and actual information gets declassified.
From 2001 until 2011. Where is the number now? Also those are all public...where are the ones the CIA knows about?
All aspects of security (policing, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, etc) are all fundamentally impossible to prove how effective measures taken are. Usually the best we can do is use a proxy measure or test pre/post.