Opinion: Balancing values and protections

Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., co-chairs the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. In a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nunn was asked for his view of the Bush administration's proposed antiterrorism legislation. His answer follows:

I think we need to take a little time on that. I think Americans are willing to be more inconvenienced, but I believe we need to balance our values before we start eliminating certain basic (constitutional) protections.

There are things we can do that will increase our law enforcement capability. The people who can do the most on technical intelligence, as opposed to human intelligence, are the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Defense Department intelligence agencies. They have the big resources, but they don't have jurisdiction in this country. The FBI has that authority, and the FBI doesn't have the resources. So our intelligence community knows a lot more about what's going on outside our borders than within them. We've got to look at giving the FBI more resources.

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