It is tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights. The president believes he has the legal authority to order electronic snooping without asking anyone's permission. Civil libertarians and privacy-fretters think George W. Bush needs a warrant from the special court set up to authorise wiretapping in cases of national security. But, in practice, the so-called FISA court that issues such warrants functions as a rubber stamp for the executive branch anyhow, so what is the difference in the end?
Would that so little were at stake. In fact, the Senate hearings on NSA domestic espionage that are set to begin next month will confront fundamental questions about the balance of power within our system. Even if one assumes that every unknown instance of warrant-less spying by the NSA was justified on security grounds, the arguments issuing from the White House threaten the concept of checks and balances as it has been understood in America for the past 218 years. Simply put, Mr Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they are asserting will not be a temporary condition.
