I Remember some FBI agents had Mossoui's (guessing at spelling) some time prior to 9/11, but weren't allowed to look in it. BLOCKED from above... and on and on.
After enough Stuff, it almost starts to look intentional.

Well, we have to remember that Edward Snowden's revelations made the govt look a lot like Big Brother and they were rightfully worrisome to everybody. So the immigration service was put on the defensive about how it did research on immigrants.

That said, under the circumstances I think it should be policy that visa applicants will have their internet behavior looked at. The govt shouldn't feel the need to conceal it or apologize about it. Terrorism runs up a body count and we're not Constitutionally obligated to respect the privacy of non-citizens the same as citizens. This was established after the Snowden revelations in regard to foreign phone records, wiretapping, email surveillance and so forth.

But that being said, it is only something that might help identify certain people as a risk, and to mark them for a closer look. A lot of foreigners have no social media history, or even internet use at all. And others may do and say all kinds of things behind fake names, encryption, etc.

It might sound simple, but doing this kind of investigation is probably complicated and expensive.

The point is, committed terrorists will adapt when they know social media can compromise them. When Mideast terrorists found out the use of satellite phones could bring a Hellfire missile down on them they went to couriering CDs and thumb drives and paper notes around in order to communicate.

Which, I think, good -- make it as hard for them to communicate as possible. Heck, even if we can't examine the social media history of immigrants for technical reasons, let's say we're doing it. There is a good evidence that ISIS is freely using social media to recruit and fire up US citizens. So placing that off limits for immigration vetting doesn't make sense. I guarantee you it's not off limits for general anti terror investigations.

I think the govt screwed up on this Tashfeen Makik case. They should have been keeping an eye on her all this time.

San Bernardino was no different than 9/11 -- an intelligence failure where clues were there but they were missed. It happens. The thing is to correct the oversight going forward.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 12/14/15 at 19:08:51:


But never underestimate the power of stupidity, carelessness, bureaucracy, overwork. These natural things do tremendous damage all the time. By comparison, conspiracies are extremely hard to pull off and cover up in the long run.

If 9/11 was a govt false flag, literally thousands of people would have had to be involved, and not one of them has broken the silence.

It's sort of like Michio Kaku's comments on the Apollo moon landing conspiracy: "It would actually have been easier to go to the moon than to construct a way to fake it and then have no one ever rat it out."

I loathed Bush & Cheney, but I don't think they staged 9/11. I do think they knew something big was coming (well, we know for sure they did) and they were willing to sit on their hands and let it happen, knowing that would give them public support to start their wars and drain the federal treasury into the pockets of Cheney's Halliburton and all their energy and military/industrial buddies' pockets.

But that was a passive, deniable crime. That just fell into their laps and they went to the bank with it because the American people were too dumb to believe it was  happening.

A lot of Americans could see it was happening and tried to stop it, but not enough did. The rest is history, ongoing today.

Sonny.... I am with you.

I don't think they could pull it off.

Now how JFK got killed, I think that was a conspiracy, and I think it is known, and that is why its sealed.

It was our own government that had him offed, and LBJ was complicit and everyone else signed on because we can't show our dirty laundry to the world.

The day JFK died, so did democracy  

Webby..... you like flags or sumtin?  

Yeah, that is prolly true, but it doesn't sell newspapers 😜