I'm not naive enough to think that there are no threats in the world, nor that we can trust our allies to always have our interests in mind (ignoring the fact that "our interests" is a debatable subject).

They have a mountain of data already -- if they can't get a sense of what's going on from that then maybe they're not up to the task.

<snark> Slightly tangential anecdata: the FBI was warned about the suspicious flight school students yet they bungled the job of stopping the 9/11 attack. So what good is this comprehensive intelligence gathering if the government can't even use it properly? </snark>

You should be very careful with that snark, because it is widely believed by experts and, more importantly, stakeholders that what kept the USG from utilizing its intelligence to stop 9/11 was inter-agency siloing; ie, NSA and CIA not sharing information with FBI.

Yes and no on the snark part. Don't we want them to "stop the bad guys"? That's the whole point of all of those agencies.

<extra-snark> The FBI had information within the organization itself and still fumbled the ball: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03...

<snark-doubledown> The CIA likely helped create Al Qaeda, so perhaps they were protecting their own. Or maybe they were too busy running drugs and plotting the overthrow of other governments to get the memo out. </snark-doubledown> </extra-snark>

Sorry, no love for any of these guys.

> "...it is widely believed by experts and, more importantly, stakeholders..."

What sources would you recommend reading to learn more about that? The 9/11 Commission Report? I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't done much reading on inter-agency relations pre-9/11.

(I hope this comment doesn't read as snark, I'm genuinely interested in learning more.)

Check out Ali Soufan's book (http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Banners-Against-al-Qaeda/dp/...). I'll loan you my copy if you're in the Boston area. He has had quite an interesting career. According to the book and the New Yorker, it turns out that Soufan probably would have stopped 9/11 had the proper information been shared with him. Again according to his book, he was also a major voice against the use of enhanced interrogation techniques and had the chops to back it up. The book states that he was one of the most effective interrogators of captured Al Qaeda suspects and his method essentially boiled down to serving them tea and debating the Quran with them in Arabic.

For a general idea of what the book goes into, you can see Soufan's profile in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact_wr.... In the (Pulitzer Prize-winning) reporter's own words: "Soufan became America’s best chance to stop the attacks of September 11th.".

Seconding this. Ali Soufan's book is fantastic and extremely readable.