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It’s commonly thought that the CIA is prohibited from carrying out operations inside the U.S, an erroneous assumption fueled by uproars in the 1970s over revelations that the agency had run wild at home—opening U.S. mail, testing LSD on unwitting Americans and spying on antiwar groups, among other unsavory activities. Congressional investigations forced the agency back into its cage.

But all the CIA did was retreat—more or less—to authorized domestic operations, which include interviewing Americans traveling to or coming from sensitive overseas areas and recruiting foreigners visiting the U.S. to work as spies when they go back home. The CIA’s domestic operations, launched in 1947, are carried out today under the agency’s National Resources Division, or NR.

But since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NR’s activities have ballooned along with the whole intelligence community’s obsession with preventing another terror assault on U.S. soil. And nowhere is this better borne out …