Good analysis, which goes to underscore my assertion that it is merely a ruse to get the apparatus in place; once it is in place then they'll pull the noose.
[span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"]The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.[/span][br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"][span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"]~ Frank Zappa[/span]
Though I maintain it is not a matter of the "expense of the illusion" they have all the money they need; but rather they wait until they are sure there are not enough people with courage, convictions and guns to oppose them.
TehBorken wrote:
[h3]Statistical fallacy of terrorist-hunting surveillance [/h3]Here's a neat statistical explanation of why NSA-style indiscriminate surveillance is useless for catching terrorists: [blockquote] The US Census shows that there are about 300 million people living in the USA. Suppose that there are 1,000 terrorists there as well, which is probably a high estimate. The base-rate would be 1 terrorist per 300,000 people. In percentages, that is .00033%, which is way less than 1%. Suppose that NSA surveillance has an accuracy rate of .40, which means that 40% of real terrorists in the USA will be identified by NSA's monitoring of everyone's email and phone calls.
This is probably a high estimate, considering that terrorists are doing their best to avoid detection. There is no evidence thus far that NSA has been so successful at finding terrorists. And suppose NSA's misidentification rate is .0001, which means that .01% of innocent people will be misidentified as terrorists, at least until they are investigated, detained and interrogated. Note that .01% of the US population is 30,000 people. With these suppositions, then the probability that people are terrorists given that NSA's system of surveillance identifies them as terrorists is only p=0.0132, which is near zero, very far from one. Ergo, NSA's surveillance system is useless for finding terrorists.
[/blockquote][a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/rudmin1.html"]Link to full article[/a]
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