In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
For years, the Bush Administration eviscerated all the military and legal structures that were designed to separate the innocent from the guilty in the 'Global War on Terror.'
Agents need to be free to pursue investigations in ways that they haven't. There have been restraints that a reformed FBI needs to make sure we don't impose.
The Snowden leaks did cause damage.
I long ago lost track of the number of times the Obama administration has assured everyone that its vacuum-cleaner approach to electronic surveillance does not threaten the privacy or the rights of Americans.
We cannot erase what has been done. We can apologize for it. We can express our outrage. We can say to the American people and to the people of the world, this is not our way and we do not condone it, but we cannot change it and we cannot erase it.
The inattention of the Bush administration to the threat from al Qaeda had results. Shortly before 9/11, Bush's attorney general, John Ashcroft, turned down FBI requests for some 400 additional counterterrorism personnel.
And from the moment that we realized it was a terrorist attack, there isn't an agent or a support person in the FBI that wasn't committed to bringing to justice those who were responsible for this.
Look, I think by the time my case was over and other ones, everybody on both sides of the aisle in Congress said we can't run a government by this kind of process and they repealed the law and that's good.
On issue after issue, the Obama Administration has openly ignored, defied, and unilaterally tried to change the law.
In the absence of full-fledged Congressional investigations, American policymakers rarely look back. They are bound by continuity and fealty across administrations and generations.