[edpc]

No, because Echelon had been around for decades. The Gorelick wall would have prevented Prism, or any system, from intervention.

It's criminal irony she was on the 9/11 Commission.

[Darksheare]

No, they only are looking at white christian males and completely ignoring muslims.
Muslims who have been 99% of terror perpetrators since, oh, 1970’s.

[Darksheare]

...and even before 1970’s.

See: Barbary Pirates.
See also: how Mohammed conquered Mecca...

[DuncanWaring]

It didn’t even prevent 4/15.

[beethovenfan]

No, because Muzzies are off limits. Just gotta keep an eye on those Christians and patriots - they’re real risks to national security (snark).

[RetiredTexasVet]

My personal view is that preventing terrorism is only a minor consideration of the spying programs. They use anti-terrorism as the scare mongering tactic to get the funding. The primary goal of the spying is control with the endgame being a One World Government. As a side note, read Brad Thor’s new book Black List. He gives the inside on a lot of the nameless programs and people running them. He’s got an inside somewhere.

[driftdiver]

They knew about the threat, just failed to act on it.

[gaijin]

The question is mostly mute, as the NSA dates from 1952, the year of it’s creaton, and Echelon was VERRRRRY well developed much longer than one full decade prior to 9-11.

The question is almost silly.

[freeandfreezing]

Simply considering how ineffective the system was against a pair of terrorists in Boston who had already been identified by the Russian counter-terrorism agency, and pointed out to the US government, it is clear that it would not have found the 9/11 plotters.

Speculation about the past is just a way of distracting attention from the present. The NSA and FBI data collection systems failed totally. Apparently the terrorist who attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square bought his supplies at the same store in New Hampshire as "speed bump" and his brother. I doubt the Boston terrorists did anything to hide their planning. And they should have been suspects in a murder, along with apparently having friends with "terrorista" as their vanity license plate.

About the only thing lacking was a neon sign saying "terrorist" blinking over their apartment, and yet the government missed them totally.

[delchiante]

We ‘needed’ the patriot act so, no, it wasn’t supposed to stop 911...

[Travis McGee]

It couldn't even stop Fort Hood or Boston.

That's not the point of Prism.

It's more like "What I saw at the coup."

The Plan: DOJ + NSA + IRS = KGB

[Iron Munro]

Just about to the same extent that it prevented the Ft. Hood terrorist attack and the Boston Bomber attack.

[Jabba the Nutt]

The answer is NO!! They had Able Danger, which uncovered the 9/11 plot and they did nothing. They had the 20th hijacker's laptop and wouldn't look at it. They had reports of Arabs at flying schools, learning to fly multi-engine jets, but uninterested in learning to take off or land.

They had already uncovered the 9/11 plot and were unwilling to see it.

You can't fix stupidity.

[JimRed]

Big difference between “might have” and “would have”.