Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backed down today from an effort to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers in the USA PATRIOT Act. Instead, the Senate approved a measure expanding the government's ability to use secret surveillance tools against terrorist suspects who are not thought to be members of known terrorist groups. Under current law, federal officials must establish a link to a foreign terrorist group in order to secure or request a secret warrant.

This political wrangling is considered a compromise by senators and by the New York Times. The way I see it, the only compromise is a compromise of our consitutional rights. The USA PATRIOT Act is the largest attack on civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition acts of World War I. Orrin Hatch wants to make it permanent and Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the attack with the Patriot Act II. We have to fight the atmosphere of fear that is leading Americans to give up the cherished freedoms that makes this country strong. If the war against terror is to have any meaning, then there must be something to protect from the terrorists. If we eliminate terrorism at the cost of freedom, then what have we won?