An excellent editorial in today's New York Times underscores the critical nature of the debate currently taking place in Congress about changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Among oher things, the Times' editors call on Congress to support a two-year sunset on the legislation, to include language that bars the collection of bulk information without having some individualized suspicion and to oppose broad immunity for telecommunications' companies that collaborated with the government to surveil Americans without a warrant after September 11th.

The Times makes clear how critical these provisions are, quoting the late Senator Sam Ervin -- an author of the original FISA legislation. In 1974, Senator Ervin noted that:

“Each time we give up a bit of information about ourselves to the government, we give up some of our freedom,� he said. “For the more the government or any institution knows about us, the more power it has over us. When the government knows all of our secrets, we stand naked before official power. Stripped of our privacy, we lose our rights and privileges. The Bill of Rights then becomes just so many words.�

You can read the entire editorial at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/opinion/21wed1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all.