the blame game that followed, the 9/11 Commission and other lawmakers—many of whom had voted to slash intelligence budgets over the previous decade—would all agree: intelligence had been at fault. The intelligence community needed more resources, more legal authorities, more data, more machines, and more people to ensure that nothing like 9/11 ever happened again. The Patriot Act was signed, and later the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended to expand the government’s ability to conduct electronic surveillance without court orders. Annual intelligence budgets surged to $75 billion
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