US debates between civil liberties and war on terror Barack Obama will make a rare public appearance alongside George W. Bush on Thursday, 10 days after the Boston bombing gave new impetus to a "war on terror" slowing after more than a decade of frenetic activity. While the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and killings of al-Qaeda leaders appeared to have reduced the threat from radical Islam that was the defining theme of the Bush era, Boston returned terrorism to the political debate. Republican politicians have responded with calls for expanded police and intelligence powers to monitor Islamist militants. We are fighting an adversary that is transforming itself all over the globe. We need to broaden our ability to go after the enemy," Lindsey Graham, senator for South Carolina, said on Tuesday. The one mistake I will not tolerate is the mistake of believing that we are not at war. The two presidents will be at the opening of the George W. Bush presidential library in Dallas, Texas. One of its features is a 17-ft piece of damaged steel believed struck by one of the aircraft that crashed into the twin towers in New York. While the Boston bombing caused nothing like the sort of death and destruction as the 9/11 attacks, the dramatic scenes at the marathon finishing line and the obsessive media coverage since have rekindled some of the same sense of peril. In the process, the attack has refocused attention on two of the central questions from the Bush presidency - the nature of the threat from radical Islam and the tension between civil liberties and counter-terrorism policy. Among intelligence officials, the relief at success in taking down "core" al-Qaeda has given way to anxiety about homegrown radicals such as the Tsarnaev brothers who more easily escape detection. "The threat from al-Qaeda and the potential for a massive co-ordinated attack on the US may have diminished, but the jihadist movement is now more diffuse," James Clapper, director of national intelligence, told a congressional hearing days before the bombing. Lone wolves, domestic extremists and jihad-inspired affiliated groups are still determined to attack western interests. The Boston attack has led to calls for increased domestic surveillance of suspected Islamist radicals. "We need to intensify the investigation of domestic suspects and get local police more involved," says Pete King, a New York congressman and former chair of the House homeland security committee. That approach was adopted by New York after 9/11 and came under scrutiny over the past 18 months for stepping on civil liberties. An investigation by AP showed New York City police had been conducting surveillance in New Jersey and an informant who claimed he was paid to "bait" Muslims into making inflammatory statements. Lindsey Graham, senator for South Carolina But Mr King says New York should become a model for ramping up surveillance. The NYPD has 1,000 police working on counter-terrorism. We should encourage that at other police departments. However, there are still calls for the administration to scale back aspects of the strategy put in place after 9/11, including reducing the use of drone strikes and shrinking the bureaucracy. James Cartwright, a retired general who was until two years ago deputy chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Tuesday that "I am worried that we have lost the moral high ground" as a result of excessive use of drone strikes. "We risk being in a position where we are generating more problems than we have solved," he said. A congressional hearing on Tuesday heard from a young Yemeni educated in the US whose village was hit by a drone strike two weeks ago. The target of the strike, Hameed Meftah, was well-known in the village and could easily have been captured, Farea al-Muslimi told senators. "The drone strikes are the face of America to many," he said. Critics of Mr Obama say while he has toned down some of the rhetoric about the "war on terror," he has continued its policies. Jeremy Scahill, the author of a new book and film, Dirty Wars, on America's use of covert methods to track down and kill alleged terrorists, says Mr Obama largely gets a free pass for pursuing policies that infuriated Mr Bush's critics. "Unfortunately, a lot of liberals have checked in their consciences at the door - that is not very healthy for our democratic process," he said.