Most of the intelligence and terrorism laws that were set in place specifically target non-americans and international surveillance so I don't really get your point.
I’m confused: a random boat shows up in a random port and some sort of supernatural “no sparrow fall” system is going to magically decide that somehow it’s of interest? The dots can’t even be connected backwards.
There is literally no participant in the article who has any connection to the United States, not even the city involved. It’s likely given the dramatis personae that none of them may ever have set foot in the US in their lives. Yet somehow this is a matter of US law???
And how again is this somehow connected with some incident on the other side of the planet 20 years ago?
There was a big shift in the intelligence community after 9/11 that is well documented and also reaches in all kinds of other areas (banking, travel records).
If you only think the intelligence apparatus of the US only watches within the border of the country that's a bit naive. Especially after what we know about the Snowden leaks (International submarine cables tapped, dragnet like collection of communications in all countries,...). The fact that there's no Americans involved is irrelevant to the question in this case.
