NSA monitoring and Bayes Theorem

[ravi <gadfly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I found a great piece by Floyd Rudmin at CounterPunch which uses Bayes
Theorem to argue that the # of false positives, even with a decently
accurate test, will make the NSA monitoring program a waste of time. I
blogged about it here:

http://platosbeard.org/archives/128

As I mention in my blog entry, I do not think people care so much about
false positives ("It won't happen to me" or if it does, I trust the
system and expect to clear myself) but instead view these results as a
screening test and are worried almost exclusively about false negatives.

Thoughts?

        --ravi

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