The community here is understandably very anti-surveillance, but you're right about the purpose of intelligence.
When we talk about intelligence and counter-terrorism, it's more about preventing terrorist attacks than reacting to them.
The UK is more open with statistics than the US — their most senior counter-terrorism officer claims that they foiled 22 terrorist attacks from March 2017 to September 2019 [1].
Comments
The community here is understandably very anti-surveillance, but you're right about the purpose of intelligence.
When we talk about intelligence and counter-terrorism, it's more about preventing terrorist attacks than reacting to them.
The UK is more open with statistics than the US — their most senior counter-terrorism officer claims that they foiled 22 terrorist attacks from March 2017 to September 2019 [1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/09/foiled-terro...