I am certainly surprised the "national security" button was not pressed during the bailout. The thought of a few years in Gitmo would have helped various CEOs consider carefully the meaning of fiducary duty.
However whereever you place the cut-off, we can find a example that will look silly. I am not arguing that a specific number of dollars is or is not an national emergency. I am simply arguing that at a certain point things look so bad we as a society want to say "You, you get carte blanche, do whatever, kill whomever, just fix it. We will review it all in 6 months".
This takes us away from can we trust the security services and into the security services as a national emergency response team.
What the NSA, CIA etc have done and are capable of, is in some respects utterly awesome. When they throw around that kind of capability and weight it should be respected, not feared or ridiculed.
At the moment we hear sirens and think "cops hurrying to the doughnut shop" not "fire engines rushing to save lives"
Maybe I am romanticising the role of the security services, but if they are not there for emergencies, then what are they there for?
I'm afraid that you are romanticising the role of the CIA and NSA etc. The CIA has become something like "The President's Private Army". I don't know what the NSA has become, but neither appears to "be there" in emergencies.
And the cost of Katrina was less than 1% of GDP (80 billion < 150 billion)
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/top-5-most-expens...
Do you find something as big as Katrina "not something worth of National Security?"