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Senators rightly want more surveillance info

Much of the media attention on the intelligence community’s surveillance activities has focused on top government officials, right up to and including President Donald Trump. But what about the rest of us?

Is the government snooping on Jane and John Q. Public too? Some members of Congress think learning more about that is as important as finding out who is bugging whom in Washington.

Fortunately, the concern appears to be bipartisan. That was demonstrated last week in a formal request for more information about the extent of surveillance. It came from Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

In a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, the two pointed out there are “holes in the public’s understanding of how U.S. person information — collected pursuant to different authorities and by different agencies — is handled.”

Few Americans understand just how pervasive the intelligence agencies’ activities have become.

Intelligence officials defend their wide sweep by insisting it is crucial to national security. But is it? Or, in a model used by the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, are some of the nation’s top spy bureaucrats using the system to build up a collection of personal information they may find helps expand their own power?

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