Chalk one up for Patriot Act fanboys?

[Infidel7]

The recent twarting of terror attcks on airliners from Britain has begun to rehash debates among my peers about the US Patriot Act.

Do you think that the act/the policies it stands for have been justified by the "saving" of the thousands on board those airliners? Is it even justifiable to say they led to the discovery of their plots. If the British government did illegally spy on this group, are their actions now justifiable?

[SirNitram]

The recent twarting of terror attcks on airliners from Britain has begun to rehash debates among my peers about the US Patriot Act.

Do you think that the act/the policies it stands for have been justified by the "saving" of the thousands on board those airliners? Is it even justifiable to say they led to the discovery of their plots. If the British government did illegally spy on this group, are their actions now justifiable?

Question: How can you debate the US Patriot Act as a success when the success story is British in nature, and solved by Scotland Yard?

Besides being a dishonest little shithead, obviously.

[General Zod]

The recent twarting of terror attcks on airliners from Britain has begun to rehash debates among my peers about the US Patriot Act.

Do you think that the act/the policies it stands for have been justified by the "saving" of the thousands on board those airliners? Is it even justifiable to say they led to the discovery of their plots. If the British government did illegally spy on this group, are their actions now justifiable?

Question: How can you debate the US Patriot Act as a success when the success story is British in nature, and solved by Scotland Yard?

An agency that had already existed and didn't need billions in new funds to create a completely separate, and largely undertrained branch to handle a specific type of crime, no less.

[Setesh]

There you go trying to invoke that pesky logic again.

Seriously, they'll take any Yard policy or proceedure, no matter how old, that mirrors part of the patriot act and hold it up as a banner that says 'see it works for them'. No matter that the Yard has had a to deal with a near constant (and in my opinion more dangerous) terrorist threat for several decades.

[NecronLord]

I have been wondering just how much of Blair's new legislation was required for the Yard to make these arrests. I'm betting 'none' myself.

[RedImperator]

I sincerely doubt, when we finally find out how they made this happen, that anything but good, solid, ordinary police work cracked the case. The way it sounds so far, the British got a tip from concerned citizens, investigated, realized the scope of what they'd uncovered, and watched these assholes the way a cat watches a spider for months. There was definitely some sigint involved, but it was focused sigint with probable cause. You know, the kind Scotland Yard has used against the IRA and the FBI has used against the Mafia for decades without having to resort to Orwellian and (in America's case) unconstitutional methods.

[SirNitram]

While the extent to which the US was useful in the end product is unknown, the assistance provided by the FBI in tracking activities on this side? Used the FISA court.

In the days before the alleged airliner bombing plot was exposed, more than 200 FBI agents followed up leads inside the United States looking for potential connections to British and Pakistani suspects. The investigation was so large, officials said, that it brought a significant surge in warrants for searches and surveillance from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees most clandestine surveillance.

One official estimated that scores of secret U.S. warrants were dedicated solely to the London plot. The government usually averages a few dozen a week for all counterintelligence investigations, according to federal statistics.

Source: WaPo

A victory for the FISA act. NOT the Patriot Act. NOT the illegal NSA survellience. Not any other peice of bullshit.

[Surlethe]

My God! The FISA can actually handle lots of warrants?! Whoops -- more bullshit against the justification for the NSA surveillance.

I personally think that potential abuse of each incremental new piece of security legislation far outweighs the potential for catching terrorists: to my knowledge, all of the fancy PATRIOTic legislation has done jack and shit to catch terrorists.

You know, the kind Scotland Yard has used against the IRA and the FBI has used against the Mafia for decades without having to resort to Orwellian and (in America's case) unconstitutional methods.

One of the arguments I heard for the PATRIOT Act was that it permitted law enforcement to legally track terrorists just as they did to the Mafia. I don't know, though, just how true it is -- I suspect it's false, even though I heard it straight from the mouth of Congressman Mike Pence.