To NYT staff, with respect: Does seeing what the paper has been blind to in the past, or even just missed in the past, make you wonder:
What were the consequences of these past omissions/mistakes?
What are we missing or getting wrong now?
If not, I worry, 5 years, or a decade or 3 from now, we will be suffering the consequences of not thinking about that -- and figuring it out.
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What strikes me, other than the obvious, is that for all our technological capabilities, there is nothing like intelligence from a human asset.
In my lifetime, I think we were so appalled by extrajudicial actions taken based on intelligence interpreted to fit a desired political agenda, rather than reevaluate the legality and morality of those actions, we instead pulled back on deploying human assets and essentially vilified 'spying,' leaving us exposed on many levels.
I don't think we'd have the violent domestic terrorism, the insane firearm proliferation, or 911 if we'd had better human intelligence. You've got to hear some things from the horse's mouth, whether that horse be Swede Annie or Tim McVeigh or Osama bin Laden.
A bit off topic, I guess, but Detective Goodwin got me talking.
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