And strengthening the NSA would directly cause the further fall of the USA. The cheapest way to to attack the USA as an institution is to attack the USA in way the gives the most radical factions power in the short term.
I don't disagree that that is how it would be portrayed by the media and viewed by the public. But a thinking man would argue otherwise, since it would mean that a terrorist attacked just when the NSA had the most amount of information available ever. A terrorist attack right now would show that dragnet surveillance on top of being Orwellian is also ineffective. When you're looking for more needles, collecting more hay without extremely powerful tools for hay processing is insanity.
I guess I'd be wondering how the NSA failed to prevent the attack, with all these NSA revelations coming out every few days. I already wonder why I'm still getting illegal telemarketers' calls, why the drug cartels still operate, why so much evil in this world continues with the omniscient NSA.
Yeah, I had the same thought about "Rachel from Card Servives" robo-calls. Apparently those go through more-or-less illegally obtained cut-outs, but the NSA is in a unique position to go after those Card Services jerks.
Then I thought, hey, it's just like bus transit: the rich folks don't ride buses, so that kind of utility gets no money. The NSA, uh, people, don't get robo-calls, so they don't see the problem.