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EDITORIAL: Respect privacy
[June 22, 2009]

EDITORIAL: Respect privacy


Jun 21, 2009 (Lebanon Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- In the past, we have cautiously supported a retooling of the government's national security surveillance powers with assurance that additional oversight would reveal whether the administration overstepped its bounds.



Now, we see the value of those checks and balances.

The New York Times published a story last week that said the National Security Agency in 2008 and 2009 had gone beyond legal limits in intercepting private phone calls and e-mails of American citizens.


The improper scooping up of private communications was broad and deep. The story said NSA officials may have intercepted "millions" of communications they weren't entitled to see.

If that estimate, attributed to three unnamed intelligence officials, is true in scope, the breach represents an unacceptable privacy intrusion.

To be sure, congressional panels have held closed-door meetings to investigate the issue. And the Justice Department has acknowledged problems with the NSA surveillance programs but in April said they were inadvertent and had been resolved.

Some federal lawmakers aren't so sure the over-collection was accidental, and others are debating what magnitude of error is tolerable.

These are important questions that must be resolved. National-security efforts are by and large conducted on a trust-me basis, meaning we're asked to trust government to respect the civil liberties of citizens as those agencies go about trying to keep this country safe from terrorist attacks.

Citizens of this country need to know their trust is well-placed.

Many of those spy powers emanate from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, originally passed in 1978. FISA was a response to widespread government abuse of wiretaps conducted in national-security efforts first revealed in the Watergate investigation.

FISA set rules about how the U.S. government was to collect information communicated by foreign powers or their agents.

Last year, Congress approved an overhaul of executive-branch spy powers, broadening the government's ability to eavesdrop on people overseas and in this country who are believed to be connected to terrorism.

It was the most significant expansion of the surveillance law in three decades.

We supported it, in large measure because it gave Congress and inspectors general increased oversight power.

We're glad to see that oversight working as envisioned. Now, it's incumbent upon the Obama administration to offer assurances the NSA can -- and will -- conduct itself with respect for civil liberties and in accordance with the law.

To see more of the Lebanon Daily News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ldnews.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Lebanon Daily News, Pa. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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