You make a good top level point that I think most would agree with - successful terror plots degrade our freedom because we fearfululy grant our government more power.
But to broadly call spying apparatus ineffective and incompetent weakens your argument.
There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone, surely many more we will never know about.(1)
There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.
The complexity in the discussion is that it clearly doesn't work 100% of the time and comes at a significant cost
But this isn't a black and white issue, we are in the grey.
But to broadly call spying apparatus ineffective and incompetent weakens your argument.
There have been dozens of publicly disclosed terror plots interrupted against the USA alone, surely many more we will never know about.(1)
There is a clear underlying reason for survellience - it works.
The complexity in the discussion is that it clearly doesn't work 100% of the time and comes at a significant cost
But this isn't a black and white issue, we are in the grey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...