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Read Snowden’s comments on 9/11 that NBC didn’t broadcast

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TheDemSocialist

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Only around a quarter of the recent NBC News interview with former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden made it to broadcast, but unaired excerpts now online show that the network neglected to air critical statements about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

When the four-hour sit-down between journalist Brian Williams and Snowden made it to air on Wednesday night, NBC condensed roughly four hours of conversation into a 60-minute time slot. During an analysis of the full interview afterwards, however, the network showed portions of the interview that didn’t make it into the primetime broadcast, including remarks from the former National Security Agency contractor in which he questioned the American intelligence community’s inability to stop the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In response to a question from Williams concerning a “non-traditional enemy,” Al-Qaeda, and how to prevent further attacks from that organization and others, Snowden suggested that United States had the proper intelligence ahead of 9/11 but failed to act.
“You know, and this is a key question that the 9/11 Commission considered. And what they found, in the post-mortem, when they looked at all of the classified intelligence from all of the different intelligence agencies, they found that we had all of the information we needed as an intelligence community, as a classified sector, as the national defense of the United States to detect this plot,” Snowden said. “We actually had records of the phone calls from the United States and out. The CIA knew who these guys were. The problem was not that we weren’t collecting information, it wasn’t that we didn’t have enough dots, it wasn’t that we didn’t have a haystack, it was that we did not understand the haystack that we have.”
“The problem with mass surveillance is that we’re piling more hay on a haystack we already don’t understand, and this is the haystack of the human lives of every American citizen in our country,” Snowden continued. “If these programs aren’t keeping us safe, and they’re making us miss connections — vital connections — on information we already have, if we’re taking resources away from traditional methods of investigation, from law enforcement operations that we know work, if we’re missing things like the Boston Marathon bombings where all of these mass surveillance systems, every domestic dragnet in the world didn’t reveal guys that the Russian intelligence service told us about by name, is that really the best way to protect our country? Or are we — are we trying to throw money at a magic solution that’s actually not just costing us our safety, but our rights and our way of life?
Indeed, the director of the NSA during Snowden’s stint there, Gen. Keith Alexander, reportedly endorsed a method of intelligence gathering in which the agency would collect quite literally all the digital information it was capable of.
“Rather than look for a single needle in the haystack, his approach was, ‘Let’s collect the whole haystack,’”one former senior US intelligence official recently told the Washington Post. “Collect it all, tag it, store it. . . .And whatever it is you want, you go searching for it.”
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Read more @: Read Snowden’s comments on 9/11 that NBC didn’t broadcast

Some unaired comments from the recent Snowden interview. Apparently we had all the info we needed on these 9/11 terrorists, but it was that we just had so much info that we dont know what to do with it. We have so much info now, the NSA doesnt know how to handle it all.
 
:roll: more ludicrosity from Snowden. The 9/11 Commission found that we had erected walls within our IC that kept different analysts from being able to share the information, meaning that while we had the picture necessary to stop the plot, we had it broken into pieces and had our system structured in such a way as to guarantee it wouldn't be pieced together.

IOW, it was exactly the kind of barriers that Snowden's fans want to resurrect that kept us from being able to stop 9/11.
 
“Big Brother is Watching You."
George Orwell, 1984
 
Jamie Gorelick.
 
Μολὼν λαβέ;1063346363 said:
“Big Brother is Watching You."
George Orwell, 1984
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"Live Long and Prosper"
Spock, 2262.
 
I don't think the 9-11 Commission said we needed to haul every bit of data available into a huge heap and then wonder how to sort through it.

I believe what they said is both the FBI and CIA had a corporate mentality and not very efficient. Both agencies missed key red flags- CIA the Air France flight 8969 hijacking, and the FBI field report on strange training requests from a group of Arab speakers. For sure the FBI field report didn't need any massive data roundup, just the supervisors doing a more diligent job.

More to the point would be a central agency that acted as a blackout baffle between domestic agencies and over seas intel activities. Someone who saw all the data but didn't allow the CIA to break it's no internal spying mandate.

Intelligent intelligence gathering would be better than massive intelligence gathering. Relying on a process and not emphasizing human deduction will always be second best. Again the FBI had the vital information to stop 9-11 on a supervisor's desk, gathered the old fashion investigative way- but would it have surfaced in a literal sea of raw data? People tasked with the job of domestic security acting like there is a purpose to their mission would have done the job, the predictable over reaction to a simple human failure has resulted in a monstrosity in money and accountability.

Problem with a huge unmanageable pile of data collected on many citizens who are not in any way valid terrorist leads is their data is in one massive pile for miners to dig through and little oversight on just who and why all the digging is going on.

I don't think it is Big Brother watching, more than dull brother fumbling around while scheming cousin rummages through the data for his own benefit.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Read more @: Read Snowden’s comments on 9/11 that NBC didn’t broadcast

Some unaired comments from the recent Snowden interview. Apparently we had all the info we needed on these 9/11 terrorists, but it was that we just had so much info that we dont know what to do with it. We have so much info now, the NSA doesnt know how to handle it all. [/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
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Good points. Leave it to the major news organs of the United States to leave out the important stuff that matters. It's no wonder Snowden won the Sam Adam's award for integrity in intelligence from former CIA officials.
 
cpwill said:
:roll: more ludicrosity from Snowden. The 9/11 Commission found that we had erected walls within our IC that kept different analysts from being able to share the information, meaning that while we had the picture necessary to stop the plot, we had it broken into pieces and had our system structured in such a way as to guarantee it wouldn't be pieced together.

IOW, it was exactly the kind of barriers that Snowden's fans want to resurrect that kept us from being able to stop 9/11.
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Yes of course, and we know that the 911 Commission had a monopoly on truth finding and truth telling. :lol:
 
apdst said:
A traitor is a credible source?
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Which is a bigger traitor--a man that reveals the crimes of government, or a group of men sitting in a legislative body doing away with Habeas Corpus or the Fourth Amendment?
 
cpwill said:
:roll: more ludicrosity from Snowden. The 9/11 Commission found that we had erected walls within our IC that kept different analysts from being able to share the information, meaning that while we had the picture necessary to stop the plot, we had it broken into pieces and had our system structured in such a way as to guarantee it wouldn't be pieced together.

IOW, it was exactly the kind of barriers that Snowden's fans want to resurrect that kept us from being able to stop 9/11.
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Very true. There also seems to be willful ignorance when it comes to implementing civil law in regaurds to privacy in a time of war, or to those we are at war with. As if they can be applied to a war time situation without completely being ineffective and harmful to very effort the war was intended to resolve or prevent.
 
Henry David said:
Which is a bigger traitor--a man that reveals the crimes of government, or a group of men sitting in a legislative body doing away with Habeas Corpus or the Fourth Amendment?
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Are you saying Lincoln was a bigger traitor than Snowden?
 
apdst said:
Are you saying Lincoln was a bigger traitor than Snowden?
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At least old Abe had a sho 'nuff war on his hands, and that little sentence in the document giving him the power.

So, no, I wasn't suggesting Abe, I was suggesting the US Congress which passed the NDAA amendment, the one with a rider attached that allowed indefinite detention, in violation of Habeas and other constitutional protections.
 
cpwill said:
:roll: more ludicrosity from Snowden. The 9/11 Commission found that we had erected walls within our IC that kept different analysts from being able to share the information, meaning that while we had the picture necessary to stop the plot, we had it broken into pieces and had our system structured in such a way as to guarantee it wouldn't be pieced together.

IOW, it was exactly the kind of barriers that Snowden's fans want to resurrect that kept us from being able to stop 9/11.
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That's it, exactly.
 
cpwill said:
:roll: more ludicrosity from Snowden. The 9/11 Commission found that we had erected walls within our IC that kept different analysts from being able to share the information, meaning that while we had the picture necessary to stop the plot, we had it broken into pieces and had our system structured in such a way as to guarantee it wouldn't be pieced together.

IOW, it was exactly the kind of barriers that Snowden's fans want to resurrect that kept us from being able to stop 9/11.
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Bold: Exactly. Why is it that all of our intelligence agencies, including our police force, and all the other protective agencies that we have doesn't share information? Why isn't it all accessible to all agencies? Part of it is a little thing called "National Security". Those two magic words that denies X group from accessing vital information unless they have permission and clearance.

I also note that you admit that we had the info required to stop 9/11....Lets examine that shall we? If we had the info before 9/11 and could have stopped it...why the need for mass data logging? If we had the ability to get the info before, why the need for this extra violation of the 4th?

BTW: I find it ironic that you basically said the same thinig that Snowden did. Just in a different way.

“You know, and this is a key question that the 9/11 Commission considered. And what they found, in the post-mortem, when they looked at all of the classified intelligence from all of the different intelligence agencies, they found that we had all of the information we needed as an intelligence community, as a classified sector, as the national defense of the United States to detect this plot,” Snowden said. “We actually had records of the phone calls from the United States and out. The CIA knew who these guys were. The problem was not that we weren’t collecting information, it wasn’t that we didn’t have enough dots, it wasn’t that we didn’t have a haystack, it was that we did not understand the haystack that we have.”
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FreedomFromAll said:
Snowdens message seems to be that we should use a bigger magnify glass. And he used 9/11 to make that point. He did not reveal anything new about 9/11 that wasnt already known. This is more of a non-issue news story trying to exploit Snowdens 15 minutes of fame.
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"Snowden's 15 minutes of fame" sure is lasting a long time. One long 15 minutes.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Bold: Exactly. Why is it that all of our intelligence agencies, including our police force, and all the other protective agencies that we have doesn't share information? Why isn't it all accessible to all agencies? Part of it is a little thing called "National Security". Those two magic words that denies X group from accessing vital information unless they have permission and clearance.

I also note that you admit that we had the info required to stop 9/11....Lets examine that shall we? If we had the info before 9/11 and could have stopped it...why the need for mass data logging? If we had the ability to get the info before, why the need for this extra violation of the 4th?

BTW: I find it ironic that you basically said the same thinig that Snowden did. Just in a different way.
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You're not understanding that the pre 9/11 IC and the post are two very different beasts.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Bold: Exactly. Why is it that all of our intelligence agencies, including our police force, and all the other protective agencies that we have doesn't share information? Why isn't it all accessible to all agencies? Part of it is a little thing called "National Security". Those two magic words that denies X group from accessing vital information unless they have permission and clearance.

I also note that you admit that we had the info required to stop 9/11....Lets examine that shall we? If we had the info before 9/11 and could have stopped it...why the need for mass data logging? If we had the ability to get the info before, why the need for this extra violation of the 4th?

BTW: I find it ironic that you basically said the same thinig that Snowden did. Just in a different way.
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We didn't have the ability to get the information needed - because our law denied us access to it. So, if it's possible for someone to make an intuitive leap with 2/3rds of a puzzle completed, but you can't do it with 1/3rd, we had two individual thirds, neither of which was allowed to be seen together. The problem wasn't that we had too much data, it was that we had erected internal walls which did not allow data to be shared.

Mass data collection on point-to-point communications allows for the rapid discovery of networks in order to allow for actual targeted collection if approved. So, for example, when number 555-5555 suddenly starts calling Mr Jihad McBombsalot in Pakistan from New York, we are able to zero in on that number and find out A) who it is and B) who its' contacts are. So, for example, say that 555-5555 only calls Mr Jihad McBombsalot, and no other numbers. It's a dead end. But it's always co-located with number 333-3333, and 333-3333 calls no one but these other 7 numbers... well, there you are then: 555-5555 is a burner phone, and 333-3333 is how this guy actually maintains contact with his cell. Grab those nodes, and now we've got the first circle of the network. Figure out who they are and now we can hopefully figure out what they are doing and how to stop them.

But that process doesn't work unless you already have the point-to-point data to query. Having the data to query is how analysts build - pulling previously unrelated or differently related data into demonstrable relationships in order to demonstrate real-world action, communication, and intent. That's one of the reasons that the IC has invested so heavily now in collaboration, wiki's, and the like.
 
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TheDemSocialist said:
HEre is another source if RT does not suffice you
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....wait. Firstly, you do realize that when you are citing RT you are literally citing the government that is currently using Snowden for it's own ends?
 
Keeping in mind that Snowden has no documents with him, are we to believe he remembers all this stuff word for word and that he read millions of documents?
 
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