Sometimes, the intelligence community does legal collection

When Benjamin Wittes spoke the words, “Sometimes, the intelligence community does legal collection against a legitimate foreign intelligence target and that target interacts with U.S. persons, against whom our people thus end up collecting information as a collateral matter,” he unveiled a truth both intricate and unsettling — the truth that even in lawful pursuit of protection, shadows are cast upon innocence. His statement carries the calm precision of a jurist, yet behind it lies a question as old as power itself: Can security exist without sacrifice? Can the guardian’s gaze remain pure when it must peer into the hidden corners of men’s affairs? Wittes, a scholar of law and national defense, speaks not to justify, but to illuminate the gray twilight where justice and necessity meet, and where freedom often trembles.

In the style of the ancients, one might say Wittes spoke as a philosopher at the gates of empire, warning both ruler and citizen that the watchtower of safety must not become the citadel of tyranny. He speaks of legal collection — that is, the sanctioned gathering of intelligence by a government’s agents, aimed at protecting the state from foreign threats. Yet, in this noble work, there is always peril. The line between defense and intrusion grows thin, for the web of communication in the modern world binds all people together. Thus, even the innocent — the citizen, the unwitting friend, the distant correspondent — may find their words caught in the nets meant for enemies. In this, Wittes reveals a paradox of civilization: that in striving to preserve liberty, man may unwittingly endanger it.

The origin of this quote lies in the realm of law, technology, and ethics — the modern struggle to reconcile privacy with security in an age of surveillance. Wittes, a legal scholar and commentator known for his work on national security and the rule of law, was describing the complex operations of intelligence agencies such as the NSA and CIA. These institutions are charged with protecting nations from unseen threats — terrorists, spies, and saboteurs — and yet their reach, made vast by digital networks, sometimes brushes against the lives of the innocent. His explanation is not an accusation, nor a defense, but a recognition of the moral tension inherent in lawful power: that even justice, when exercised with care, may leave footprints upon the sacred ground of privacy.

History, too, has long wrestled with this same dilemma. Consider the tale of Rome under Cicero, when the republic faced conspiracies within and enemies without. Cicero, consul and defender of the state, ordered the surveillance and execution of Catiline’s conspirators, claiming it was to save the republic from ruin. The people rejoiced at their safety, yet whispers arose — had Cicero, in saving Rome, wounded her laws? So too in later ages, when governments spied upon their own in the name of protection — the British crown watching its colonies, or modern powers monitoring their citizens in fear of terror — the same question endured: when does vigilance become violation? Wittes’s words carry the echo of those ages — a reminder that every generation must measure anew the balance between freedom and security.

The heart of Wittes’s wisdom lies in his phrase “collateral matter.” It is a phrase cold in tone, yet profound in meaning. It acknowledges that even when actions are legal, their consequences may wound. The ancients would have understood this as the cost of empire’s burden — that to wield great power, even justly, is to bear the weight of unintended harm. The philosopher-kings of old spoke often of such burdens. Plato, in his Republic, warned that guardians of the state must be both fierce and gentle, for without gentleness, they become wolves; and without fierceness, the wolves prevail. So too must the modern intelligence officer remember that every intercepted message, every name captured by accident, carries the spirit of a human life — not a statistic, but a soul.

Yet Wittes does not speak to condemn the watchers, but to remind the watched — and the world — that accountability is the chain that keeps power from devouring virtue. To gather intelligence lawfully is not wrong; but to do so without reflection is perilous. The lesson, therefore, is not to abandon security, but to cloak it in conscience. For the sword of surveillance, like the sword of justice, must be held with both strength and restraint. Every free people must demand transparency and oversight, not to weaken their protectors, but to keep them human — to remind them that in guarding the realm, they also guard the dignity of those within it.

And thus, the lesson that echoes from Wittes’s words is this: beware the quiet erosion of liberty done in the name of safety. Law must guide the hand of power, and wisdom must guide the heart of law. The ancients knew that the city without walls would fall to enemies, but the city with walls too high would suffocate its own citizens. The balance between openness and defense is delicate, sacred, and eternal. Each generation must guard it anew — through vigilance, humility, and remembrance that the state exists not to watch over men, but to serve them.

So let these words endure as a teaching for all who wield authority or live under it: to protect without oppressing, to defend without dominating, to see without violating sight. For the true test of civilization is not in the strength of its armies nor the reach of its intelligence, but in the compassion that tempers its power. When law serves both justice and mercy, then, and only then, can the people rest — secure not only in body, but in spirit.