In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Sidley Austin’s Alan Charles Raul discusses how we balance preventing more terrorist attacks with maintaining privacy rights. Since 9/11, the U.S. has done a “reasonably reassuring” job of balancing privacy and national security. “The lesson for us now is that by overlaying aggressive privacy safeguards and rigorous oversight onto the intelligence community’s aggressive electronic surveillance, we can protect our values without compromising national security.” While there’s been much criticism of national surveillance programs, Raul says, there’s been no “systematic deployment of electronic surveillance for intimidation or repression purposes … This is huge. And it is not merely a coincidence. The massive system of post-9/11 safeguards appears to be working.”
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