I wonder whether they will cut back on the massive collection of metadata. About 99% of it is just a waste of time and a distraction.
Very, very few Americans are prone to violence based on their political persuasions or even based on anything.
Domestic violence, violence under the influence, the violently insane (includes a big portion of the mass killers, rapists), even unsafe driving, etc. cause more deaths and inflict more harm on society than anything that can be found by reviewing databases of people's e-mail addresses or phone calls.
Anyone who has ever tried to look for the needle in a haystack of vast information knows that you really have to look at a lot of context to see the importance, the relevance and usefulness of a bit of information. Computers are pretty sophisticated, but thanks in part to the extreme ambiguity of the American language, sorting information by computer still leaves enormous amounts of work for people, discernment, judgment.
Computer nerds will try to analyze everything with computers. Medical, economic and scientific data can be analyzed that way, and even language can be analyzed to some useful extent by computers. But understanding social relationships well enough to prevent acts of violence or terror -- No. Not until they can scan the brain as you sit at your computer. Even then, emotions are strange things.
Some surveillance is great. But that massive data-base stuff is pretty useless unless it is being used for political control, to identify people's religious and political affiliations.
As we saw today in the LAX airport. That kind of surveillance is going to miss some of the most important warning signs. You have to work to have a society that is fair, inclusive and in which people learn nonviolent ways of resolving differences and expressing emotions.
Computers are very useful in researching where people are and confirming their identities, but for the cost in terms of time and effort and equipment, they are being overused in my opinion.
There is no substitute for creating a accepting, fairly loving society. No substitute. And the US is failing miserably when it comes to that fundamental crime-prevention tool.
All the computer surveillance in the world will not make things good when there is so much hate around. The excessive use of computers is just a waste. Ask any pre-school teacher. She will tell you what humans need to learn and how they need to be to create a non-violent society.
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