Some have accused President Bush of never listening to complaints or criticisms of his administration’s policies. However, he may be listening to us more than we know.

Recently, it has been discovered that Bush signed a presidential order in 2002, allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor the emails and telephone conversations of American citizens without a warrant. Over the last four years, the government has been spying on Americans with no warrants of any kind. While it is unlikely that any Gunn students have been targeted, these revelations have brought forth many intriguing ethical questions.

For instance, how far is the government or any other administration allowed to go in the name of protecting us? No one would stand for our own school administration reading emails or wiretapping phones, just as very few strongly object to our administrators’ current policy of patrolling the campus during school hours. Those, however, are two extreme examples, and the line between acceptable and unacceptable is normally far less defi ned. Would it be permissible for an administrator to search students’ personal web pages, such as MySpace, in order to glean information about parties or other “extra-curricular” student activities? If the information is made available to the public, then it seems rational, while uncomfortable to students, that authorities would be able to access it.

There are those who say that protection is not worth giving up rights. Benjamin Franklin once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” While this stance is extreme, it does elegantly represent a point of view shared by many Americans. Allowing no rights to be sacrificed, even temporarily, is detrimental to our protection and stability as a nation. After Sept. 11, the government had to take new precautions in ensuring our security. If there were a Columbine-like attack on the Gunn campus, it would make sense to raise our security level. Just because such a situation has yet to occur does not mean that it will not, and preemptive measures against this scenario seem reasonable.

Unfortunately, this philosophy is easily abused. An administration could justify just about anything under the guise of protection from future threats. Therefore, restrictions must be placed. Our government should not be able to violate the constitution and wiretap citizens without a warrant, even if it claims that it is in the best interests of our country. The Constitution exists for a reason, and limits to the power that one person can hold are necessary. By sacrifi cing those limits, we are letting the foundations of our entire nation slip away. Unless the future survival of our country was in serious jeopardy, we should never allow the government to bypass their constitutional duty to follow the law.

Thankfully, Gunn does not have an equivalent of the NSA, and as far as we know, Mr. Jacoubowsky has not been listening to our phone conversations. However, we should not let any administration impose new security measures without any review or opposition. It does not mean that we should sit quietly while our rights our taken away. It also does not mean that we should rebel against all security measures. They exist for a reason whether we like them or not, and safety is truly the most important thing for a school, and for a country.

We need to find and maintain a balance between security and liberty—both in the small world we live in now and the larger world we will soon enter.