From the Department of For Pete's Sake, Really?

FBI Director defends NSA surveillance on phone records, saying it could have helped derail 9/11 plotters
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) June 13, 2013

Uh huh. Too bad there wasn't anything else available to warn the U.S. against the terrorist attack on 9/11. Something like a security briefing entitled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US.

NSA, Line 1

U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls
One Nation, Under Surveillance

For sev­eral years, two De­moc­rats on the Sen­ate In­tel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden of Or­e­gon and Sen­a­tor Mark Udall of Col­o­rado, have been cryp­ti­cal­ly warn­ing that the gov­ern­ment was in­ter­pret­ing its sur­veil­lance pow­ers un­der that sec­tion of the Pa­tri­ot Act in a way that would be alarm­ing to the pub­lic if it knew about it.
“We be­lieve most Amer­i­cans would be stunned to learn the de­tails of how these se­cret court opin­ions have in­ter­pret­ed Sec­tion 215 of the Pa­tri­ot Act,” they wrote last year in a let­ter to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Er­ic H. Holder Jr.

I hate to say it but this doesn't surprise me at all. The Patriot Act was nothing more than a power grab and ripe for abuse of the American people. Alarmed? Yes. Surprised? Not in the least bit.