Edward Snowden and spread of encryption blamed after Paris terror attacks

There is a very interesting video [0] of Noam Chomsky, after the 9/11 attacks, where he says that any government and regime worth it's salt will use 9/11 as an excuse to push their agenda over the public.

And they will do so using their fear.

[0] <For the life of me, I couldn't locate the video. Will update the post if I do.>

Note how the government also uses times like these to rush through new policies around privacy.

Did phone tapping stop the US from preventing 9/11? No.

It's possible that the perpetrators evaded surveillance with encryption. It's also possible that the perpetrators did have their phones tapped, but investigators dropped the ball. It's possible that they avoided phones and did all their planning in person. It's even possible that someone made an executive decision to not intervene and stop them, for political reasons.

As far as I know, none of Snowden's criticisms have been addressed at French organizations. While there's some possibility US intelligence agencies could have picked up on this, it's primarily a European matter and not the NSA's responsibility. This makes Snowden's having undermined the NSA quite unlikely to have been relevant.

First we lose our friends, then we'll lose our privacy? I was horrified by the reaction of some of my acquaintances back home in France: "Let's imprison all those who went to Syria", "We should forbid Tor if this is what those terrorists used to kill our people", and the now classic "if you don't do anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to hide".

What's next?

Much terrorism is an externality of Western foreign policy and a nation's abuse of it's citizens (domestic).

Whether Snowden or encryption enabled terrorism or not is TOTALLY missing or deflecting the real conversation that should be occurring. Do not fall into the trap of arguing. Ignore statements like OA. Instead ask "Why are people willing to kill themselves and others?" "What has France done / is doing so that people believe that is their best redress?" "Why do people become terrorists?". Most import of all (and the only way we will end terrorism). "How can we change the world so less people are compelled to such drastic action?"

>Our Governments: "We spy on all of you to keep you safe". But why have your mass surveillance systems failed to prevent the Paris attacks?

The name of the article calls for itself:

Dragon Slayer Becomes The New Dragon

https://medium.com/@durov/dragon-slayer-becomes-the-new-drag...

Surprisingly, you only need a few terrorists to change international laws and double those military budgets. Snowden or not, it's the virus that comes first and the anti-virus after. I don't think any mass surveillance program can stop such actions unless you become a militia state which I highly doubt (and hope not) will ever happen.

If anything, mass surveillance is to blame for lack of intel. Before spying was so ubiquitous, terrorists might have said something on the phone or by email.

France has porous borders. They spent $1 BILLION over the past year on security "enhancements".

If evil people want to be evil, they are going to find a way.

Blame encryption and omit the violent nature of Islam.

Oh, idiot talking heads on TV news. Who cares?

If I wanted to know what idiots on TV think, I'd watch TV.

This is a false flag attack that serves a number of purposes. Slowing the push for encryption and generally boosting surveillance and domestic operations is one. As the western debt grows and the military position becomes thinner, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the fiat that demands massive resource distribution imbalances. This will lead to serious shortages in western countries. In order to maintain power, the state turns its guns and spies inward.

But in the meantime the covert operations in Syria have not been completely successful, and since they need to do Syria before Iran (as has been planned for many years) they need to move to overt operations. This requires the propaganda to motivate it which needs a real event behind it.

It's known that governments have had plans as to how to get support from a tragedy if one happens. Is it that far fetched that preventing tragedies which are more likely but have a benefit to them for the government, would be considered at a somewhat lower priority than one which is less likely, but does not have any side benefit for the government?

Now, I'm not claiming that this is the case, not really, but it is something that comes to mind, and the most likely version of it does not seem that absurd?