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Comment by apalmer | Hacker News Reader

What on earth are you talking about? The whole purpose of the NSA monitoring program is to provide actionable leads to enable intervention by law enforcement. You can think this is 'bad', you can think this is 'good', you can think it is highly effective, you can think it is ineffective...

but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality. The whole purpose of the program is to snatch terrorists up off the streets, the whole purpose of it being classified is to enable it to function without explicitly giving terrorists a good understanding of our ways and means...

how on earth is assuming a program is used for at least what the government claims it is used for a conspiratorial fantasy?

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> but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality.

Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system?

You say it's wildly disconnected from reality and that the NSA's entire purpose is to do precisely this, and if that's the case you should be able to easily show me examples which demonstrate the 'snatchings' are a) occurring and b) the norm.

If it's not conspiratorial fantasy, then the evidence should be in abundance, right?

There is evidence of US citizens being blown off the streets by drones.

Do I just take your word for that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki

The relevant parts:

In April 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama placed al-Awlaki on a list of people whom the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities.[32][33][34] The "targeted killing" of an American citizen was unprecedented. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court.[32][34][35][36] Al-Awlaki was believed to be in hiding in Southeast Yemen in the last years of his life.[26] The U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft (drones) in Yemen to search for and kill him,[37] firing at and failing to kill him at least once,[38] before succeeding in a fatal American drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011.[39] Two weeks later, al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver, was killed by a CIA-led drone strike in Yemen.[40][41][42] Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar's father, released an audio recording condemning the killings of his son and grandson as senseless murders.[43]

And US officials admitted the killing of the boy was mistake.

Ah, so not the streets of the US, which is what I said.

Got it.

You are the one that shrank the topic from 'streets' to 'US streets.' Just as you have done to others in this thread.

I'm the one who asked the question. It's already a given that the US government cares more about the rights of its citizens than it does about noncitizens. That's been true for 200+ years.

honestly? I dont understand what you are arguing. Who said anything about no arrests, trials, or convictions? I do not have classified info on what is or isnt done within or outside the justice system based on NSA monitoring.

I do know the government has claimed that this system has stopped dozens of terrorist plots. I make the assumption based on my judgement that these terrorists are not given a 'stop it or else we will arrest you' but are instead 'detained' in some way. Maybe you disagree with that, and feel these folks are issued a subpoena to appear in court at some later date. Further my understanding is this program is classified, and whatever is done with these 'detained' individuals is not a matter of public record. I guess this is an assumption as well, but seems like a pretty basic one, you don't issue gag orders and maintain top secret security and then throw on the publicaly available court dockets 'this guy was arrested due to the fact the NSA data captured he was interacting with a known foreign terrorist', this doesnt mean he wasnt tried by some secret court, I make no guesses as far as what happens once someone is 'detained'... disagree with that if you will, but its not a conspiracy theory, thats as far as i understand it the official government line on what the program is used for.

You're missing the "US citizen" part of what I said.

> Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system?

Is what I asked. Non-US citizens aren't necessarily granted the same rights US citizens are granted.

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