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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is a difficult one, and using the imagery of the righteous founders does not help the debate. Remember that they lived in a different time, where it would have been much more harder, and the scale would have been much lesser, of terrorist acts that can be carried out. I'm not saying either way is better, just that its not a simple choice, and there might be other choice as well.

Or maybe, we can root out terrorism by bringing progress to the entire human race. OK, but then you still have to deal with domestic terrorism: sniper shootouts, school massacres etc. done by Citizens. How can that be prevented?

One has to give credit to the US govt.'s efforts though: not a single case of terrorism on US soil after 9/11. That's pretty impressive.

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We have to remember that our founding fathers were terrorists in the eyes of the British.

I think a big step towards stopping terrorism would be to stop sticking our huge noses in everyone else's business. Whenever we take from one group and give to another, we create terrorists. This is a pattern we repeat over and over and instead of just minding our own fucking business we, as a country, feel this need to "save" the world from oppression (and hey, why not make some money while we're at it?)

So then what do we do? Up surveillance and carpet bomb countries in the middle east with drones. What does this do? Kill all the terrorists?? I'm willing to bet for every one terrorist we kill in a drone strike, we create 10 more because we killed someone's father or brother (or hell, their dog).

> One has to give credit to the US govt.'s efforts though: not a single case of terrorism on US soil after 9/11. That's pretty impressive.

Boston bombing? A citizen bomb strike is a terrorist act, generally. And the US government didn't do shit about it because they are completely incompetent. Our government consists of a large number of baboons spending our own tax dollars to instigate, fund, and at the same time fight terrorism all while chipping away at our rights little by little.

Yay, go team.

Retaliation is a real problem, when you don't crush your enemy. U.S. foreign policy didn't have to punish Japan for it's Manchurian expansion, but it resulted in Pearl Harbor. Japan absolutely completely had to be destroyed brick by brick for that nation to yield. No Japanese terrorists since. Other incidences of unprovoked and unchallenged acts: see Crimea and Nazi annexations.

> U.S. foreign policy didn't have to punish Japan for it's Manchurian expansion, but it resulted in Pearl Harbor. Japan absolutely completely had to be destroyed brick by brick for that nation to yield. No Japanese terrorists since. Other incidences of unprovoked and unchallenged acts: see Crimea and Nazi annexations.

That's an insane conclusion. There have been plenty of border skirmishes that haven't resulted in greater aggression. Those are cherry picked data points.

Ok, assuming your points are correct, you can retaliate against a known, organized force (or person), but you cannot retaliate against a nebulous group of people who exist in different parts of the world, many of whom share completely different ideologies.

You cannot "retaliate" against terrorism any more than you can retaliate against car crashes and deaths from cancer.

"One has to give credit to the US govt.'s efforts though: not a single case of terrorism on US soil after 9/11. That's pretty impressive."

Wait -- that's definitely not true; the Boston marathon bombings and Newtown come to mind. I think you implied in your second paragraph that "dealing with domestic terrorism" is a separate issue -- in truth, I don't think we can properly separate domestic from international. Terrorism is terrorism.

That being said, I'm not convinced we live in a different enough time to warrant the infringement of basic rights, either. While the article might be suggesting that we can't draw a line at all, that's not what I'm suggesting either. I just think we need to carefully balance the issue of safety vs. freedom.

The US Government certainly doesn't separate between the two, since it uses that excuse to spy on their own citizens.

In the wake of the Boston bombings, someone said that clearly those events show that we need to interpret the Constitution more loosely and give our government more power. This makes sense - our founding fathers never could have imagined terrorists with access to black powder.

This list directly contradicts your last sentences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#...

> How can that be prevented?

That's a totally tangential conversation. The first conversation is: is the NSA being lawful?

> lawful

I think you need to be careful how you ask that question. Lawful may not necessarily what is right, or what is in line with what freedoms citizens expect to carry.

I'm not American, but I think you should approach this issue first by asking if it's moral, then if it's lawful, and then if it works in practice as it is written in law.

I'm an American, and I think it needs to be approached in exactly the opposite way. Obviously everyone has their own opinions about the people who implemented the current pervasive surveillance system, but their legal culpability has to be the first question.

Platonic discussions about how the ideal version of America would run are nice, but they're not very useful if a huge section of the stakeholders (members of the intelligence community who may or may not be guilty) have a lot of motivation to exercise their fifth amendment rights. Once it's clear what the law is now, and who (if anyone) has violated it in the intelligence community, people will be freed to speak to law makers and officials and others.

Once we understand where we are - who & what we listen to, how we use it, who we share it with, and why people thought we should (and could, under the law & the constitution), then we can have a conversation about how to move forward. Which of those goals cross lines that we don't want to cross as a country? Which of them are the right idea in the wrong place? Etc. People cannot engage in that kind of conversation with legal action hanging over their head (nor do we want people who will be convicted of gross ethical breaches speaking without that known).

OK, but then you still have to deal with domestic terrorism: sniper shootouts, school massacres etc. done by Citizens.

One has to give credit to the US govt.'s efforts though: not a single case of terrorism on US soil after 9/11.

Fastest contradiction I've seen in a while.

Nice try, Obama

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