To protect America, protect privacy: with President Bush seeking to extend the "Protect America Act" indefinitely, it is time to examine how making this legislation permanent would affect our right to privacy.(SURVEILLANCE)(Cover story)

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On September 19, President Bush, in a carefully orchestrated media event obviously designed to promote his legislative agenda, addressed members of the press at the Threat Operations Center of the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Specifically, he discussed the recently enacted "Protect America Act," which he had signed into law a month and a half earlier.

The thrust of his remarks, however, was not to celebrate the legislation's passage. Instead, Mr. Bush lamented the fact that "the law expires on February 1st--that's 135 days from [September 19]. The threat from al Qaeda is not going to expire in 135 days."

The president (or his speechwriters) played the al-Qaeda card to full advantage. Now might be a good time to recall the warning once uttered by James Madison: "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." Madison's words alluded to the time-honored principle that a people who normally would guard their freedom jealously, often are willing to sacrifice some of that freedom if they can be convinced that a foreign enemy poses a greater threat.

As to how that pertains to the Protect America Act, which effectively destroys the Fourth Amendment's prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures and the issuance of warrants without probable cause, an excellent summary appeared in the Christian Science Monitor of August 7, two days after President Bush signed the bill into law:

 
   The US government now has greater 
   authority to eavesdrop without warrants 
   on American citizens' telephone 
   calls and e-mails after President Bush 
   signed new surveillance legislation 
   into law on [August 5]. Authored 
   largely by the White House, the new 
   law, officials say, provides a legal 
   framework for warrantless monitoring 
   that was already being conducted 
   by the National Security Agency outside 
   of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence 
   Surveillance Act (FISA). 

A few excerpts from the act provide a sense of how this surveillance is to be accomplished: