DAVID REABOI: 9/11/2001 +20.

In the end, those who would give the government the benefit of the doubt about these surveillance tools and interventions were found to have misplaced their faith in the institutions and individuals that had, as their sworn mission, to keep Americans safe. As some of the civil libertarians had suggested, the temptation to abuse these expansive, new powers would prove to be too great—if not by the first generation of national security bureaucrats, then by subsequent ones.

However, because these surveillance tools would be misused, it would be foolish to think they weren’t ever necessary at all, or that they didn’t address a legitimate threat. It would be incorrect to use hindsight to dismiss the plots or attacks that did not take place thanks to US intervention. And it would be a gross error to believe that there was, in fact, no threat at all from Islamist terrorism. Even the hacks at Wikipedia know better.

Part of the tragedy of what’s transpired in America over the last 20 years—and indeed, there were many—is that there are very few easy, unqualified answers.

America fought the War on Terror with two decades of military operations and mass surveillance at home and abroad, destroying sleeper cells and disrupting terror plots. But the expansion of government power used to deal with the unprecedented threat of al Qaeda and other terror groups were, eventually, turned on other Americans.

Read the whole thing.