Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) went on record Friday as opposing, in general terms, the libertarian principles on which the U.S. was founded. “I don’t agree with the libertarians,” he told the Washington Post. “I want my security first. I’ll deal with all the details after that.”

The unsurprising statement came after congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle promised an investigation into allegations that President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance on people inside the U.S.

The White House refused to confirm or deny the existence of the program, but said in general terms that the president operates within the law.

“Decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people,” Bush said on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on Friday.

Disclosure of the NSA plan had an immediate effect on Capitol Hill, where Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans derailed a bill that would renew expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law. Opponents repeatedly cited the previously unknown NSA program as an example of the kinds of government abuses that concerned them, while the GOP chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he would hold oversight hearings on the issue.

“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who favored the Patriot Act renewal but said the NSA issue provided valuable ammunition for its opponents.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees who has often sided with the administration on national security issues, called the program “the most significant thing I have heard in my 12 years” in the Senate and suggested the president may have broken the law by authorizing surveillance without proper warrants.

“How can I go out, how can any member of this body go out, and say that under the Patriot Act we protect the rights of American citizens if, in fact, the president is not going to be bound by the law?” she asked. . . .

The NSA program highlights an ongoing and often tense legal debate over the boundaries of presidential power. John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer whose legal opinion helped support creation of the NSA surveillance program, also was instrumental in other memos that argued that Bush had nearly unfettered authority in areas related to the war on terrorism.

Former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith said he was “not shocked” by the program or the legal arguments underpinning it, because “the theory or the belief that the president had this constitutional power has been around for a long time.”

But Smith also said: “These programs always have a way of being abused, of expanding beyond the purpose for which they were created. If the president believed it, he could have gotten authority to do it in the Patriot Act. By avoiding that course, in so doing, he may ultimately wind up eroding the very power he seeks to assert.” — Washington Post

Lott, at a minimum, does a disservice to his constituents in the state of Mississippi, by failing to represent them. Though after a comment like that, I suspect his political career may well come to an end. Americans must not be deceived: We can have real security without sacrificing the freedom on which this great nation was founded. But we have to be willing to stand up for it and demand it of our representatives.