Twelve years after September 11, our intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies still haven’t fixed the data-sharing problems that make us vulnerable to more attacks. It’s difficult to reach any other conclusion after unnamed counterterrorism officials at the CIA this week revealed that Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev remained in their system as a person with possible ties to terrorism, while the FBI had closed its investigation into the man.

If this information had been shared between the agencies and the FBI had continued to monitor his activities, could the bombing have been prevented? That is a question no one can answer definitively. It may be that our laws still would not have given the FBI sufficient authority to track him. And the sheer number of individuals whose profiles suggest they pose similar risks may simply overwhelm our ability to keep a close eye on all of them.