You said "If the FBI and the CIA had more power prior to 9/11, they may have been able to thwart that terrorist attack."
May I suggest that the two agencies you name have not used their resources wisely? If you spent some serious time investigating these two organizations, I feel confident you would be amazed at the amount of waste and the number of stupid decisions that have been made, all in the name of career enhancement.
Most of the people in the trenches are probably decent, hard-working Americans who love their country. But the polical leadership seems to always be willing to sacrifice anything to further their own power. So decisions are made that are bad for our country but good for the decision-maker's career.
The politicians and beaurocrats have enough power. Don't give them any more!
>>> The politicians and beaurocrats have enough power. Don't give them any more! <<<<
Look. What are we talking about here? The goal which the CIA and the FBI have is a worthy goal and it can only be accomplished (or at least partly accomplished) with government involvement.
Here's what I mean. The intelligence community's main job is to keep the country secure. This can be done with the help of non-governmental agencies but not with the government agecies themselves in place.
OTOH, the goal of welfare is to "defeat poverty." This is also a worthy goal but the real work in this regard is being done by private agencies and state agencies. The federal government does more harm than good in this endeavor.
We need the FBI/CIA to be strong, just as we need a strong military. I believe that the military, just as the intelligence community, is in a rather large morass of beareaucratic syrup. Nevertheless, we need to fully fund it because it's job can't be done by anyone else and what they do do well is positive.
In order to stop Al-Quada and others who wish to kill us, we need to have a more powerful intelligence gathering operation. How should we do that if we choose not to empower the FBI/CIA/NSA/MI?