But remember, it’s not illegal when the President does it.

In times of extreme fear, American leaders have sometimes scrapped civil liberties in the name of civil protection. It’s only later that the country can see that the choice was a false one and that citizens’ rights were sacrificed to carry out extreme measures that were at best useless and at worst counterproductive. There are enough examples of this in American history - the Alien and Sedition Acts and the World War II internment camps both come to mind - that the lesson should be woven into the nation’s fabric. But it’s hard to think of a more graphic example than President Bush’s secret program of spying on Americans.

Illegal eavesdropping swept up vast quantities of Americans’ private communications without any reasonable belief that they could be related to terrorism. The National Security Agency flooded the Federal Bureau of Investigation with thousands of names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and other tips that virtually all led to dead ends or to innocent Americans.

Read The NY Times editorial Here