ThinThread or Trailblazer probably work well if you know the results and look backwards to find the clues. The problem with mass intel gathering has always been sifting the huge volume of chaff in real time to find a little wheat BEFORE the fact. Might there have been shenanigans and venal considerations with contracts? Sure. Could a transition to a new system, or weaknesses in the new system itself, have created extra vulnerabilities? Quite possibly.
But going by what this article says, the whistleblower’s ThinThread program was replaced a month before 9-11. So it failed to detect (or at least to cause action on) a year+ of plotting, preparation, flight schools, foreign telecommunications, funding, and possibly connections to Saudi officials, etc., but would have miraculously stopped 9-11 in it’s final weeks? And the evidence is that after 9-11, they could use the system to work backwards and predict the past. We should apply this to stock selection and PowerBall numbers; we’ll all be RICH!
Indeed. And further, the idea that ONE system in the many hundreds and thousands in the Intelligence Community would be the silver bullet is absurd.