Washington Post – Editorial Op-Ed – A Panicky Bill. By overwhelming majorities, both houses of Congress have now passed legislation giving the government greater latitude to monitor communications and otherwise pursue and detain suspected terrorists. Leaders of the effort were celebrating the complex bill's enactment yesterday as a major bipartisan accomplishment and great success that, not incidentally, redounded to their credit. Our contrary view is that the rapid passage represents a failure of the legislative process which, in the long run, the country is likely to regret. The measure contains some worthy provisions. But parts of it also infringe unnecessarily on civil liberties. They could and should have been excised; the bill would still have been sufficient. But Congress lost its nerve. [Privacy Digest]