Our nation's papers-of-record this week both weighed in on proposed White House changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the law that regulates our government's ability to conduct electronic surveillance on its citizens.
Essentially, President Bush wants to make it easier to bypass FISA to snoop on Americans without warrants. He'd also like to shield from prosecution telecoms such as Verizon and AT&T that cooperate with intelligence agencies in a manner that calls to mind dogs rolling over to get their tummies rubbed.
Both papers, naturally, disapproved of the measure. But they struck very different tones in their editorials. Herewith, a few strong passages from the NYT, which, although guilty of employing a hack journalist (Judy Miller) who helped make the case for war in Iraq, has cast a much more trenchant eye on the Bush administration:
And now, for purposes of comparison, some material from the Washington Post editorial page, which beat the drum steadily for war and has yet to provide an adequate explanation for its lack of skepticism (note the rhetorical question at the end):
Winner: NYT