Surveillance Sanity

SURVEILLANCE SANITY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Benjamin Civiletti, Dick Thornburgh, William Webster]
[Commentary] Public disclosure of the NSA program brought a flood of class-action lawsuits seeking to impose massive liability on phone companies for allegedly answering the government's call for help. The Senate Intelligence Committee has reviewed the program and has concluded that the companies deserve targeted protection from these suits. The protection would extend only to activities undertaken after 9/11 until the beginning of 2007, authorized by the president to defend the country from further terrorist attack, and pursuant to written assurances from the government that the activities were both authorized by the president and legal. We agree with the committee. Dragging phone companies through protracted litigation would not only be unfair, but it would deter other companies and private citizens from responding in terrorist emergencies whenever there may be uncertainty or legal risk. For hundreds of years our legal system has operated under the premise that, in a public emergency, we want private citizens to respond to the government's call for help unless the citizen knows for sure that the government is acting illegally. If Congress does not act now, it would be basically saying that private citizens should only help when they are absolutely certain that all the government's actions are legal. Given the threats we face in today's world, this would be a perilous policy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119379463805177092.html?mod=todays_us_op...
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