A presidential commission established to look into the operations of the National Security Agency and its practice of collecting data from Americans’ cell phone, email and Internet traffic has concluded that the widespread collection should continue, but with restrictions that will increase privacy protections.

We think they have it backward. There’s something about the idea that our government should be allowed to rake in every electronic communication that just runs contrary to what it means to be an American, regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum.

It seems clear enough that Congress gave the NSA and other agencies permission to conduct domestic spying activity – that’s what it amounts to, even if those in the government collecting the data prefer other terms for it – in response to the 911 attacks.

It’s less clear that Congress intended for the practice to be as sweeping as it has become and it would be nice if we could put that genie back in the bottle in the same way it would be nice if we could unsplit the atom.

Being realistic, however, we understand that isn’t likely to happen, even though there’s scant evidence that such widespread data collection has done much, if anything, to prevent terrorism.

Still, there are some things that Congress could and should do to restore the faith of Americans, who seem to trust the NSA only a little more than they trust investment banks and who bristle at the notion that Big Brother is collecting their communications data.

The first thing they should do is end the NSA’s free ride before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees the collection and use of the data. When the NSA wants to dig deeper into the pile of records, it has to show the court it has legitimate reasons for wanting to do so. The flaw in the system to this point, however, is that there’s been nobody arguing the other side. As a result, NSA lawyers have lied to the court and there’s been nobody there to call them on it. Privacy needs an advocate.

There’s also talk of having records held by phone companies themselves, rather than the NSA, which seems to makes sense for a country founded on the belief that the less intrusive government is, the better.

And, finally, we have to decide what we’re going to do about Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who leaked the information that brought the NSA abuses to light in the first place.

He’s living in exile in Russia to avoid prosecution for what amounts to whistle-blowing. As much as the NSA would like us to think of him as a traitor, the reality is he blew the whistle on some practices that have offended our sensibilities as a freedom-loving people.

He has probably made the NSA’s job harder, but then again, it never should have been this easy in the first place.

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