More analysis not more data

Wed 22 March 2006 by Kevin van Haaren

Read stories about what we knew about the 9/11 hijackers before 9/11 and most of them read like this:

Moussaoui Trial

Over and over again it is shown that red flags were thrown up about people taking airline training, interested in flying but not take-offs/landings, etc….

Pretty clear that we had the information in front of us that something was going on but that we failed to connect the dots and see what was being planned.

Unfortunately since 9/11 all the administration wants to do is gather more dots, not actually spend time putting the dots together. More dots actually clouds the pictures, especially when most of the dots gathered aren’t relevant to the picture.

Information gathering is certainly needed, but that isn’t what we’ve been lacking. We’ve been lacking good analysis of the information we do have. Why the administration insists it needs the ability to spy on anyone/anywhere without warrants when they can’t even analyze the current information they have is beyond me. Add in the bogus information gathered from library records and internet search data and e-mail sniffing and the system is going to bog down in unuseful data and miss the next plans again!