> It also seems that they were caught with their tail between their legs in the late 90s which may have been the call to arms after 9/11: Yes, that among other

> It also seems that they were caught with their tail between their legs in the late 90s which may have been the call to arms after 9/11: Yes, that among other things. NSA had details on one of the hijackers, FBI had other details, but there were institutional barriers between them cooperating about it, and in any event there was no real clear directive for either NSA or FBI to be pursuing counter-terrorism. In fact Bush was well on his way to winding down what existing efforts were in place toward counter-terrorism, to instead prioritize on saber rattling with the large-scale military forces. As a result of 9/11 (which elicited its own Congressional investigation) the NSA, along with the rest of the nation's intelligence community, was charged with ensuring that they connected the dots on all future terrorist acts before they happen. But unfortunately Congress still has yet to engage with proper oversight or accountability measures, nor to force the installation of transparency measures commensurate with the scale of the intelligence activities they directed.