I think he meant it in the sense that &quot;we have 10,000 other people who are <i>associated with militant Islamits</i> in our database, why should we care about these guys?&quot;<p>That&#x27;s the noise he&#x27;s talking about. The reason you can&#x27;t &quot;prevent&quot; terrorism, is because there are way too many people who &quot;act a certain way&quot;, whatever that way may be. This isn&#x27;t helped by the fact that agencies like TSA and whatnot have huge lists or vague descriptions of what describes &quot;suspicious behavior&quot; that pretty much cover <i>everyone</i> who goes through the airport.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techdirt.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;20141024&#x2F;14222128933&#x2F;guidelines-who-might-be-suspicious-too-nervous-too-calm-blending-standing-out-its-all-suspcious.shtml" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techdirt.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;20141024&#x2F;14222128933&#x2F;guide...</a><p>That&#x27;s <i>noise</i>. You&#x27;re giving these agents exponentially more factors to consider that makes it impossible for them to find the <i>real terrorist</i>. It really is &quot;making the haystack bigger&quot; (as a counter-argument to NSA&#x27;s opinion that mass surveillance helps them &quot;find the needle in the haystack&quot;).