For those charged with gathering the information our government needs to keep us safe, the news has been grim. Following the leaks by Edward Snowden beginning in June last year of highly classified intelligence gathering techniques, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, disclosed in September that terrorists tracked by U.S. intelligence services have started encrypting their communications in ways that defeat detection, and that the government has lost track of several.

Meanwhile, Islamic...