To the editor:

The Saturday Column presents its readers with a false dilemma: Either we must allow illegal wiretaps of American citizens, or we must severely weaken our defense against the threat posed by international terrorism.

This is absurd. There is no government, no organization, no power on earth that threatens the United States of America. Certainly there are those who wish us ill and threaten “deadly initiatives against U.S. citizens,” but they do not threaten the survival of the republic. The real threat to our nation is from a fearful and shortsighted voiding of long-held constitutional protections and the rule of law.

Against all odds, we have survived as a nation with the Bill of Rights intact since 1789. We have triumphed in the face of invading armies, the burning of Washington, the Civil War, World War II and the threat of nuclear annihilation – not in spite of, but because of, rights and freedoms guaranteed to us under the Constitution. For us to now declare those freedoms and rights inimical to our survival, or to fearfully unmake what hundreds of thousands of servicemen have bled and died for, is foolishness.

To forgo our constitutional protections in the name of defense against terrorism is to give power to the terrorists, a power they do not have. If we remake America into a country where individuals in the government are considered above the law, then the terrorists will have won – but we will have destroyed America where they could not.

Marc Carter,

Baldwin