Please provide one single example where communication and sharing of information with one's fellow citizens made them less safe.
In other words: this sort of logic is by no means unprecedented in American history, for the simple reason that gathering information from the general public of a nation is a basic and common element of espionage against that nation. Whether or not such espionage is actually useful is a different story, but especially in this day and age of ubiquitous near-instantaneous and effectively-permanent public (or at least less-than-private) communication, there's every reason to believe that there are "enemy spies" among the general population, and therefore that the less information the general population receives, the less information the enemy can gather (at least through that particular avenue).
I feel that this current instance of information-concealment is excessive, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that the likes of ISIS are collecting information from the American public, and thus not unreasonable to want to limit the information going out to the public in order to prevent hostile agents from obtaining that information.
Please way what the precedent is then if this is not unprecedented in American history.
>"... there's every reason to believe that there are "enemy spies" among the general population, and therefore that the less information the general population receives, the less information the enemy can gather (at least through that particular avenue"
That statement is absurd - "keep all the citizens in the dark just in case one of them is a terrorist!"
I don't disagree. That doesn't change the fact that it's been an American tradition since at least WW1/2. This is really nothing new.
If the threat is credible, then limiting the dissemination of information is not unreasonable. I don't believe the threat to be credible, but I'm no national security expert.
I do not know if this is that case, but there is a class of information that when made public reduces safety. The problem is not with telling any one individual, you or I would probably do little with the information, but once "everyone" knows it potential attackers could use the information.
If it were something like the times or flights we suspected the terrorists would attack and they got that information I hope you can see how that would make things worse.
I think the real solution is valid oversight, not this FISA non-sense we have now. Actually, I don't know if its non-sense because its so secret I can't tell if its doing its job or not, so I must presume its not.
You mean like announcing a laptop ban from flight originating in 10 predominantly Muslim countries? Do you think terrorists don't pay attention to the news?
>"I do not know if this is that case, but there is a class of information that when made public reduces safety."
Please provide an example of this.
I wish physical security were like digital security. When securing a server I can publish exactly how I did it and if it is good then the server is secure unless some gets physical access...
With physical access the description of the system is a weakness. Unlike packets against a firewall any real wall can be beaten down with enough force, so letting your enemy know how thick your wall is or how many men guard it is a security vulnerability all on its because then they know what goal they need to reach. Uncertainty is poor computer security tool because most attacks are free, physical attacks have a cost. So attackers won't do them unless they think the odds of success justify the costs. If they don't know if they can beat down the wall they probably won't try unless they are desperate.
Physical security is all about economics or manpower, either way it is about making attacks too expensive to be worthwhile. Just describing the boundaries to be secured makes it easier, and therefor cheaper to plan an attack. This is very unlike computer which is about finding and fixing flaws. A computer system without flaws cannot be attacked over a network, it must be attacked physically (or socially engineered which can be considered a physical attack here). For any physical attack there is some amount of money or manpower that can take the objective.
