> This statement is about a career government official cynically using the murder of a large number of people for his own ends
Which sort of takes for granted the idea that the government official's position -- which no one doubts precedes the attacks -- is not honestly held for the reasons presented, and that the official does not honestly believe that the attacks represent the kind of problem that adopting the policies he advocates would help prevent.
It doesn't seem to me that this style of argument serves much except to win kudos from people who already agree with the ideas behind it and oppose the policies being advocated.
It could very well be that he in fact holds these reasons for honest reasons and truly believes them. But at the same time the opposition (IS) also believe all kinds of stuff for reasons held dear to them and the populace are caught - literally - in the crossfire.
I'd rather see some more introspection and a bit less clamoring for more budget and fewer restrictions from the intelligence community after this attack. And it is not as if this is the first spectacular failure of the intelligence services when it comes to actually preventing this sort of thing either (Which does not surprise me because I strongly believe that it is fundamentally impossible to protect an open society against these kinds of attacks without a substantial change of that society, after which we could probably no longer call it 'open').
> It doesn't seem to me that this style of argument serves much except to win kudos from people who already agree with the ideas behind it and oppose the policies being advocated.
Given France already possessed the desired legal capability and was warned by a friendly government about one of the suspects in 2014 and again in 2015...
I'm not sure how asking for the same measures that failed is a strategy of someone with genuine concerns. Why do you think that?
Which sort of takes for granted the idea that the government official's position -- which no one doubts precedes the attacks -- is not honestly held for the reasons presented, and that the official does not honestly believe that the attacks represent the kind of problem that adopting the policies he advocates would help prevent.
It doesn't seem to me that this style of argument serves much except to win kudos from people who already agree with the ideas behind it and oppose the policies being advocated.