Ashcroft loosens the leash on the FBI.

“There you go, boy,” Ashcroft might have muttered, rubbing slowly against a nearby hitching post as he sniffed at the sweat-stained leather leash in his quivering hand. “They say if you love something, let it go, so I’m letting you go. Now. Say. Thank. You. YES!”

Ashcroft commented (later, after he’d rinsed off), that until now, the FBI lacked the right to “surf the Web in the same way you and I can to look for information, or to simply walk into a public event or a public place to observe ongoing activities.” He then demonstrated surfing the web “as I do”, shocking reporters with a Favorites List that made The Red Door look like a cheap titty bar in Tupulo, Mississippi.

The FBI could not be reached for comment as they were busy walking in and out of public establishments and “looking around”, just to see what the big fucking deal was.

The problem, of course, is that the failures of the FBI (et al.) were not so much from the access to data, but the *analysis* of data. That's a lot less sexy to correct ("We want to hire a bunch of analyst who will sit there in white shirts and ties and hornrimmed glasses!"), but it's the real issue that needs to be dealt with.

Of course, the more analysis of data you do, the more you potentially allow for abuse, too. An efficient and effective law enforcement and internal intelligence apparatus cuts both ways.

Thats exactly the problem at NSA/CIA/FBI.

Alot of it stems from the end of the Cold War, when in the first Bush administration and Clinton administration there was a sudden desire to rid the FBI and CIA of intelligence opratives and move towards "sexy" signal intelligence (sigint) and electronic intelligence (elint). Much of it was, it looks better to have a 3 billion dollar budget for Tempest or Lacrosse gear having a 4 million dollar budget for 10 field agents.

In 1992-94 there was a massive layoff of senior field agents, may of whom had served in East Africa, Southern Africa, Afghanistan/Iran/Pakistan. They were considered Cold Warriors and had no place in the Kinder, Gentler Intelligence world. It got so bad, that by Sept 12 2001, there wasn't a single agent in CIA that spoke Pastun, where as in August 1991 there were more than 400.

Instead of a new series of sigint birds, NSA/NRO need a host of geeks to parse the data.

During the Cold War, you had the best from the Ivy League schools going to State, CIA, FBI, DIA. Today the best become lawyers.