We Have BIG BROTHER -So-Why Do We Need PATRIOT ACT?(LAT)

LAT
EDITORIAL
Bigger brother

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS CAVALIER on Friday night when he told Jim Lehrer on PBS that a report about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on U.S. citizens was "not the main story of the day." He is entitled to his own news judgment, but it reveals a lot about his willingness to disregard constitutional safeguards and civil liberties while pursuing the war on terrorism. To the rest of us, the revelation in the New York Times that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on people within the United States without judicial warrants was stunning. In one of the more egregious cases of governmental overreach in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the monitoring, without any judicial oversight, of international phone calls and e-mail messages from the United States.

Some critics say the FISA courts are too slow to issue decisions in an environment in which every minute counts, and that Cold War laws are ill-suited for a war on amorphous terrorist cells. If that's the case, the administration and Congress should have worked together to alter the courts' procedures or to amend the law. Instead, the White House unilaterally opted to exempt much of its antiterrorism efforts from any kind of judicial oversight — just as it tried doing with its policies regarding detainees.

Now even sympathetic lawmakers can be expected to view the Patriot Act more skeptically. The revelations about the NSA raise two fundamental questions about the administration's rationale for increased powers:

If it's already spying on its own citizens, then why does it need the Patriot Act?

Alternatively, if it's already spying on its own citizens, how can it be trusted with the Patriot Act?

This administration has yet to fully acknowledge that with greater powers must come greater accountability.



http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-security18dec18,0,5190326.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials