re: When did the CIA & the FBI become so inept?

J. Edgar Hoover was such a strange (and in my opinion - paranoid) guy, that he started the secretive, subversive, leading up to if not crossing the line, type surveillances many, many years ago. He led the agency for almost 50 years and if you think he didn't have dirt on every sitting president since the 20s, you didn't keep up. I would use a different adjective than "inept". They are very good at what they do. Unfortunately, what they do is not always in the best interest of the USofA but in the best interest of the FBI (or one of their big supporters).