Strange bedfellows

This morning's New York Times had a head turning byline, with a short essay published by Mike Lee and Dick Durbin, the first an extremely hard line Republican senator from Utah and the second a liberal Democrat senator from New York. What could these two find to agree on? They both are calling for reforms to a specific section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that has been used by federal investigative agencies to probe the communications records of American citizens without a warrant. Obviously the threats to the United States and to Americans from foreign and domestic terrorists are real, and the authorities need tools to be able to help keep us safe. But I agree with the Senators that realistic threats should easily be able to get a judge to approve a targeted warrant. On the other hand, just casting around, looking over Americans' communications records to see if there is something "interesting" - that's against the spirit and language of the 4th Amendment. So I think the senators are on the right path, and more importantly - even in these polarized times, its a great example of the fact that there are still many many things that Americans of all stripes can agree on. In my view, those areas of agreement are where we should focus, instead of constantly fixating on our differences.