Forget privacy: We need to spy more

PRETTY MUCH everyone agrees that our human-spy capacity is missing in action. The chances that a CIA agent will be in the same cave as Osama bin Laden when the next 9/11 is being plotted are vanishingly small. The chances that our porous border security or transportation security will stop the next gang of Islamist cutthroats aren't much better. It's simply impossible to protect every inviting target in a continent-sized nation of almost 300 million people.

When it comes to the war on terror, the biggest advantage we have comes from our electronic wizardry. The National Security Agency has its share of problems, but it has long been the best in the business at intercepting and deciphering enemy communications. Until now. If civil liberties agitators, grandstanding politicians and self-righteous newspaper editorialists have their way, we will have to give up our most potent line of defense because of largely hypothetical concerns about privacy violations.

Assorted critics, taking a break from castigating the Bush administration for doing too little to protect the homeland, are now castigating it for doing too much. How dare the NSA receive without benefit of a court order telephone logs from AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon? Even though the records were anonymous and did not include the contents of any calls (Verizon and BellSouth have now denied offering any information at all), hyperventilating worrywarts fret that fascism has descended.

Qwest is supposed to be the hero of this drama for having, in USA Today's words, "the integrity to resist government pressure." That is not a compliment often paid to a company that has been accused of massive fraud and whose former chief executive is charged with 42 counts of insider trading. Maybe Qwest should celebrate by launching an advertising campaign touting itself as the preferred telecom provider of Al Qaeda.

All this concern with privacy would be touching if it weren't so selective. With a few keystrokes, Google will display anything posted by or about you. A few more keystrokes can in all probability uncover the date of your birth, your address and telephone number and every place you have lived, along with satellite photos of the houses and how much you paid for them, any court actions you have been involved in and much, much more.