Our Civil Rights in the Age of Terror

www.nytimes.com February 16, 2003 Privacy Invasion Curtailed (February 13, 2003) To the Editor:

William Safire ("Privacy Invasion Curtailed," column, Feb. 13) is on target in criticizing the Bush administration's efforts to eradicate the protection currently afforded American citizens from the intrusive and snooping eyes of the F.B.I. and others. To clothe the government's efforts in the cloak of fighting terrorism does a grave injustice to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights.

No citizen's rights, no civil rights should ever be stripped from Americans without the oversight protection of Congress or the federal courts, and then only in extraordinary circumstances.

We must not be panicked by the Bush administration into allowing the destruction of our Bill of Rights, which so many have given their lives to preserve. The federal government has received its authority from the citizens and governs only by our consent. That authority must not be ceded lightly.  

JAMES L. COOPER Margate, N.J., Feb. 13, 2003