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Any move to make it easier for federal agents to track what private citizens do privately, though, makes libertarians on the left and right edgy. On Friday, House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, a conservative Republican, said he was "deeply troubled by the Department of Justice's failure to consult with Congress over changes to investigative policies that have been in place for more than 20 years." Civil libertarians warned that however sensible the reforms sounded, the potential for abuse by "cowboy" agents was great and that the letter and spirit of the Constitution do not endorse the sacrifice of privacy for security. "You could make the country safer from terror by attending every meeting at every mosque, but do you want to do that?" asks Robert Litt, a top Justice official under Janet Reno. "The question will be, What do they do and where do they go with this new power?" Polls have consistently shown a public willingness to trade some privacy for security. The harder questions are, Whose privacy, and how much, and will it actually do any good?
--Reported by James Carney, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Elaine Shannon and Michael Weisskopf/Washington