As far as necessary until told different by their bosses. I often don't agree with what they do, but law enforcement gets a lot of crap in all seasons.

When a terrorist slips through (eg, the underwear bomber) people howl, asking how they could be so stupid and blind not to follow leads that are obvious in retrospect. When they get caught following up a terrible lead (eg a Reddit post), people howl, asking how they could be so stupid and blind, and so on.

> As far as necessary until told different by their bosses.

So if they start slaughtering people tomorrow and bosses don't tell them to stop in time, then they are just "doing their job" right?

> ... but law enforcement gets a lot of crap in all seasons.

I wonder why that is? Why don't barbers, engineers, firefighters get as much crap?

And besides, who are bosses anyway? Aren't people the bosses. If people pay taxes for this "protection" they have all the justification to howl. How is that different than paying for a service, not getting it, and then complaining.

> When they get caught following up a terrible lead (eg a Reddit post), people howl, asking how they could be so stupid and blind, and so on.

If people didn't "howl" in that case, then we would have clearly reached some kind of total surveilance stage, where citizens are monitored by law enforcement agencies for any reason, any time, and nobody thinks twice about it.

Notice how the traditional media didn't "howl" too much at it. That's a telling lesson of the kind of biases we are dealing with.

I didn't intend to pick a fight, only point out that they take crap on either end of the spectrum. Some people expect everything and anything to be done to prevent terrorism. Others expect a firm line on individual rights. Different people howl for different reasons. That's politics in essence.

The priorities law enforcement deals with have fundamental conflicts which are often fueled by outrage and political expediency. It's not a fun situation for anyone. No one wants to be "soft on crime", but neither do they want their malls blown up.

I imagine that barbers don't get the same level of crap because their job is not a political football. I am certainly not excusing stupidity or malice.

So they get in trouble for doing a shitty job and they also get in trouble for not doing their jobs? Wow, that's a catch 22.

If the FBI is investigating them, either all REAL counter terrorism safeguards have failed, or its that "very special" kind of terrorist that's more likely to shoot himself because he can't figure out which way to point his AK.

The CIA no longer operates its intelligence-sharing and counter-intelligence programs exclusively abroad. The whole "rendition/torture/secret prison" thing is a fact of life.

Their job is to make sure we never even hear about the terror plot. They have no real oversight by "we the people". They're driven and good at what they do and this is not a new game to them.

We only hear about law enforcement, and I like said, they're our last line of defense, just after the boys brigade and the league of woman's voters.

I love how this is being downvoted. Is the truth so hard to hear?

The truth? You spewed out a fantasy 007 yarn that has nothing to do with reality.

Reality: every terrorist that actually tried anything has reached their target (though most blow it and fail to do any damage). The CIA isn't a super group that's swatting down terrorists like flies and we only hear of the 1 or 2 that get through while thousands are blocked. That's pure fantasy.

Sorry, not a 007 fantasy yarn.

wtf. Any evidence what so ever for your magical elite force that sneaks in, cleans up massive rings of terrorists without us poor slobs even noticing it? I think you need to cut back on the comic books. The US gov people you're talking about are no where near competent enough to pull things like this off without blowing it and it getting out.