No, it doesn't work like that. What evidence can you present to indicate that as the government has increased general surveillance (such as wiretapping, rather than, say, ground surveillance), they have decreased how often they interfere with citizens' lives? What evidence is there for increased efficiency? What has actually happened is that the government has taken additional liberties away on all fronts. Losing privacy did not gain us more freedom of travel, nor did it gain us any other liberties. We simply have less privacy, and less freedom to travel, and less freedom to assemble, etc.
Lack of intell was not the cause of the 9/11 attacks. There was no lack of intell. There was a lack of coordination and communication among the various agencies, and more surveillance doesn't change that. There's little to no evidence that our eroding freedoms have increased safety (not that that would justify the lost freedoms anyway).
1) I know for sure that in my business, lack of information (about customers) leads to less accurate fraud detection. End result of missing information is that both me and my customers suffer more.
I don't see why it should be different with government.
2) Loss of freedoms in the last 10 years was caused by people being scared of 9/11. You cannot do much about it anyway. But you can choose what freedoms are more important to you. If I have to give up some freedoms, I'd better give up surveilance, but keep freedom of speech and freedom from being arrested.
If you don't make such choice - that choice would be made for you.
1) Because no amount of information will ever be complete, and in any event there's no way to analyze that information efficiently. If you had the recorded phone calls of every customer you deal with, would that solve fraud? Of course not, because they'd have to mention the intent to defraud, and you'd have t listen to the conversation.
2) I find it strange that you believe that you actually have a choice at all. So far no one has come to my house to ask what freedoms I prefer, nor have they asked me whether I'm okay with giving up more freedom in general. And I still don't understand why you think these freedoms are somehow exchangeable, as if the government will be content to give back freedom to assemble if they can just take away enough privacy.
Lack of intell was not the cause of the 9/11 attacks. There was no lack of intell. There was a lack of coordination and communication among the various agencies, and more surveillance doesn't change that. There's little to no evidence that our eroding freedoms have increased safety (not that that would justify the lost freedoms anyway).