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Originally Posted by absence_of_color
I understand your point, but homeland security funds are spent to prevent anything from happenning, and wouldnt you consider having "absolutely nothing" happen to fit largely in the proof department?
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Unfortunately, your logic is inherently flawed here. If I use your same logic, the fact that the government spends billions of dollars on keeping illegal drugs out of the country means that there aren't any here. Those guys on the corners on the South Side of Chicago are just hanging out, looking for a good game of stickball or maybe for the Good Humor man to come on by.
Look, I agree that Homeland Security is doing an adequate job. Excellent? Not so much since they're managing to harrass the rest of us while keeping us "safe". They may (or may not) have foiled some plots in the planning stages, but since none of these folks have ever gone to trial (at least the post-9/11 ones), it's kind of hard to see announcements as proof. Maybe the Canadian cell was a group ready to wreck havok, but then again maybe it was just some idle online chitchat. That remains to be seen. Personally I think that absence of a follow-up attack means some combination of 1) none was planned, 2) the jihadists were incompetent, 3) Homeland Security disrupted a crucial portion of a plot either through arrests or holding up communications/funding or 4) the military has harrassed the planners overseas to the point where they can't get a cohesive plan into action.
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Originally Posted by absence_of_color
Yeah, everything IS kept secret. So secret its scary. I would like to think because its just better that way. Americans spend a lot of their time protesting things that doesnt fit nicely into their daily regimen or way of life, and terrorists attempts is something that would have alot of citizens up in arms. I am glad that is kept top secret, I worry enough about it allready.
I do feel guilty for feeling that way considering a huge percentage of the worlds population live day to day in unsafe environments where something could and does go wrong very close to home almost every day.
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We all live with uncertainty and in an unsafe environment. An infant in a stroller was killed by a car a block from my house 3 weeks ago. Granted, some parts of the world live under the threat of violence, but so do a large percentage of Americans. Look in any concentration of urban poverty, and you'll find horrific amounts of violence both on the streets and in the home. Personally, I think that there needs to be more oversight on Homeland Security and exactly what they're doing. Even at these early stages of their existance, they're showing a troubling habit of trampling our Constitutional rights. I'm not saying that the Average Joe needs to be aware of HS's every move, but those in Congress certainly need to be kept better informed.