Nat Hentoff writes:
Before his forced resignation, President Richard Nixon declared, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Our current chief executive, however, speaking this year at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, said of our terrorist enemies: “They may seek to exploit our freedoms, but we will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and distrust.”
By contrast, on Sept. 27, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charlie Savage, the press’s Paul Revere guardian of those cherished liberties, broke a story in The New York Times that next year President Obama will send Congress “sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is ‘going dark’ as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.”
Read more of the commentary in The Mercury.