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identification, by better securing our borders, by sharing information gathered
by many different agencies.We also recommend the consolidation of author-
ity over the now far-flung entities constituting the intelligence community.The
Patriot Act vests substantial powers in our federal government. We have seen
the government use the immigration laws as a tool in its counterterrorism
effort. Even without the changes we recommend, the American public has
vested enormous authority in the U.S. government.

At our first public hearing on March 31, 2003, we noted the need for balance

as our government responds to the real and ongoing threat of terrorist attacks.
The terrorists have used our open society against us.In wartime,government calls
for greater powers,and then the need for those powers recedes after the war ends.
This struggle will go on.Therefore, while protecting our homeland, Americans
should be mindful of threats to vital personal and civil liberties.This balancing is
no easy task, but we must constantly strive to keep it right.

This shift of power and authority to the government calls for an enhanced

system of checks and balances to protect the precious liberties that are vital to
our way of life.We therefore make three recommendations.

First, as we will discuss in chapter 13, to open up the sharing of informa-

tion across so many agencies and with the private sector, the President should
take responsibility for determining what information can be shared by which
agencies and under what conditions. Protection of privacy rights should be one
key element of this determination.

Recommendation: As the President determines the guidelines for
information sharing among government agencies and by those agen-
cies with the private sector, he should safeguard the privacy of indi-
viduals about whom information is shared.

Second, Congress responded, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with the

Patriot Act, which vested substantial new powers in the investigative agencies
of the government. Some of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot
Act are to "sunset" at the end of 2005. Many of the act's provisions are rela-
tively noncontroversial, updating America's surveillance laws to reflect techno-
logical developments in a digital age. Some executive actions that have been
criticized are unrelated to the Patriot Act.The provisions in the act that facil-
itate the sharing of information among intelligence agencies and between law
enforcement and intelligence appear, on balance, to be beneficial. Because of
concerns regarding the shifting balance of power to the government, we think
that a full and informed debate on the Patriot Act would be healthy.

Recommendation:The burden of proof for retaining a particular gov-
ernmental power should be on the executive, to explain (a) that the
power actually materially enhances security and (b) that there is ade-

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