I don&#x27;t like surveillance, but at the same time, I wonder: How much of this lack of record can be attributed to parallel construction, where law enforcement uses the surveillance results to &quot;luckily&quot; know where to look, and &quot;by chance&quot; figure out how to foil the terrorists?<p>I can imagine that the intelligence agencies may not be thrilled about broadcasting their capabilities.<p>My nightmare scenario is that surveillance actually is helping, but the extent is a closely guarded secret, which means that we&#x27;ll never get rid of it, and we&#x27;ll never know why, or have a chance to, as a society, have a conversation about the tradeoff between surveillance and counterterrorism.