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Author: Arnold, DanBurke, MichaelPaglee, M. RobertDooman, RobertSato, PhyllisRegan, FrankLivesey, SteveFisch

Readers expressed dismay and outrage at recent reports that the NSA has been examining the domestic phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans. "Why should our civil liberties be imperiled just to apprehend a few bad guys?" asked one. Another argued, "All the administration need do is say the words 'September 11' and a significant number of Americans will cower in fear, providing carte blanche to the president to do whatever he deems necessary in the name of our protection." Yet another contended, "If our government continues to spy on ordinary Americans, then the terrorists have succeeded in destroying our way of life." But some thought the government's actions were justifiable. "This is not domestic spying," said one. "It's protecting this country." And another said, "So what if the NSA is spying on my calls? If such a practice will help us catch the bad guys, I'll be happy to record my own conversations for the NSA."

HOW MANY MORE REVELATIONS DO we need before our elected representatives in Congress are finally moved to follow up, with meaningful oversight, on their initial expressions of incredulity and dismay at each new development in the NSA scandal ("Spying on Your Calls," May 22)? First we are told that international communications (beginning and ending at two foreign points) are being monitored; then it is disclosed that, in fact, some international calls beginning or ending in the United States have been under surveillance; finally, we learn that the integrity of virtually all U.S. phone calls may have been compromised. At each stage in this upwardly ratcheting scandal, we are assured by the administration's apologists that only this much is being allowed--and each time this is falsified by the disclosure of a further level. How much more will we learn before any action is taken to oppose this?

YOUR MAY 22 COVER ASKS A GOOD question: "What Else Don't We Know?" Well, before September 11 we didn't know there was a band of bloodthirsty killers in our country plotting to destroy the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol and kill as many Americans as they could. The era of fearing Big Brother is over. There is a real threat now--not to our precious privacy rights (an interesting idea for a people who seem to need to broadcast the most intimate aspects of their lives on television or advertise themselves on My Space.com), but to our lives. The terrorists hate us and they want us dead. We have a choice: hold on to the sophomoric ideas of a more innocent time or accept the responsibilities of our current time. If we choose the first, we can expect more 9/11s.

YOUR COVER HEADLINE SCREAMING spying on your calls is unacceptably misleading. The only spying being done by the NSA is keeping a record of the numbers that someone has called, both from and to the telephones involved, for data-mining purposes. Both numbers are entered into a massive database without the recording of a single word. This is exactly the same information that is recorded by the telephone companies for billing purposes, and is similar to the data mining done by super-markets and credit-card companies. Most citizens have nothing to hide in the numbers being called from their telephones, and if this technology can prevent another terrorist attack on us, I vigorously support its continued utilization.

AS A VETERAN, I HAVE SERVED TO protect our American freedoms. Military graveyards across the world are filled with those who gave everything to protect freedom. I speak German and served there for several years after the war. When I spoke with Germans in the '60s, they would still look around to see if anyone was listening. I felt proud that back home we Americans would never have to do that. My fellow citizens are now shrugging off those rights that so many fought and died for. If you don't want your constitutional rights, please go to some other country where you can bask in restricted freedom.

TO SAY "DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR desperate measures" is like calling the glass half empty. One can as easily say "desperate times call for extraordinary courage" in demonstrating the value of a free and open society safeguarded with checks and balances. Combine that with questions about data mining's efficacy in actually catching a terrorist and really connecting dots, and its huge cost, and I am convinced our government is taking us down the wrong path. I would rather see all the money devoted to looking at our phone records spent on draining the swamp that breeds terrorism.

HERE IN THE MIDWEST NO ONE CARES about the government's "Spying on Your Calls." I could not imagine the government or anyone else wanting to listen in on everyday, mundane calls that people make. But if this is all it has to do, then let it do it. After 9/11 whatever the government does is just fine by me. After all, we have had no attacks since then.

IS OUR GOVERNMENT SO WEAK THAT IN four years it can throw away the freedoms and safeguards that took more than 200 years to build up? If so, then the 9/11 attacks have, with the help of our own government, turned a once open and free society into a secretive police state.

YOUR EXTENSIVE COVERAGE OF National Security Agency spying was quite interesting, but it would seem that monitoring phone calls, while being a national source of irritation, would have little impact on the kind of terrorism practiced by Al Qaeda. Wouldn't you have to accept that Al Qaeda, without resorting to a lot of telephoning, continues to be enormously successful? It has lured the United States into an armed conflict in the Middle East that so far has cost more than 2,400 American lives, more than 10,000 wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars. It has scared the daylights out of the entire nation, reducing us to, among other indignities, taking off our shoes to board an airplane. It has produced a political division throughout the United States over the managing of foreign affairs and has effected a worldwide distrust of the U.S. government. Every day that people are killed in Iraq represents a new win for Al Qaeda. How will the NSA, armed with millions of telephone numbers, manage to stop this terrorism carnage?

YOUR ARTICLE "THE FINE ART OF Letting Go" (May 22) hit close to home. The paragon of a baby boomer's hopes and dreams, I graduated from a good private university and now work for a large advertising agency in New York. My father has been more than supportive throughout this whole endeavor. He helped me pick out schools that matched my interests, paid for my auto insurance, groceries and college textbooks, and even drove me 12 hours round trip to New York so that I could be fresh for job interviews. After all that, did I end up a spoiled, immature man-child unable to handle situations on my own? Of course not. My father's actions didn't teach me to be independent, but they taught me that we're all interdependent, a lesson I now apply at the job he was so instrumental in helping me land.

AS THE PARENT OF A COLLEGE STUDENT and dean of students at a small liberal-arts college, I know that the college years are a time of personal growth. Bumps in the road can be jarring, but they often teach life's most important lessons. Students who draw on their own resources to deal with the uncertainties of academic challenges, roommate conflicts and loneliness are rewarded with increased self-confidence and the tenacity to handle future problems. Parents who respect this process will be rewarded with the knowledge that they have raised independent thinkers who can succeed in a new environment. I know how strong the temptation is to fix the problem myself, and I have had to learn to resist. Instead I just send the time-honored package of cookies and remind myself that success is achieved through my child's hard work--not mine.

YOU REPORT THAT SALES OF GAS-guzzling cars and trucks have been undeterred by the recent rise in gas prices ("Griping About Gas Prices…in a New SUV," May 22). For decades environmentalists who urged for an increased gas tax to encourage conservation and to help pay for new energy research have been shouted down by apologists for the oil and auto industries. They warn that any undue rise in gas prices would threaten American industry and shut down the economy. The lie has been revealed--industry, the economy and car sales march on with nary a bump, and consumers and analysts are saying prices will have to go at least another dollar higher before we see any impact on consumptive behavior. So now what's the excuse not to raise gas taxes?

SINCE AMERICANS DO NOT WANT TO conserve, I have a solution to the gas crunch: let's pay by the cylinder. If you drive a four-cylinder car, you pay $1.50 for a gallon of gas. If you drive a six-cylinder car, you pay $2.75 for a gallon of gas. If you drive an eight-cylinder car, you pay $5 for a gallon of gas. When buying a car you will choose either to conserve or to guzzle. How simple can it be? This way the blame is on those who consume the most.

FROM A CERTAIN PERVERSE perspective it makes sense that $3-a-gallon gas prices and a huge (127 percent) increase in Cadillac Escalade sales (and $75-and-change to fill it up) are running neck and neck. Buyers of big, expensive, guzzling SUVs aren't thinking gas--they're thinking about making a statement: "I like to look down on traffic," says Brian Dalby, who traded in his SUV for a bigger one. Which is why, as Fareed Zakaria points out in "The Real Story of Pricey Oil," "America remains the gorilla of global gas," consuming 10 times the amount of India, which has more than triple the U.S. population.

IN "THE REAL STORY OF PRICEY OIL," Fareed Zakaria incorrectly reported that U.S. oil consumption has doubled since the mid-1970s. In fact, it has increased 20 percent since 1973. We regret the error.

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By Dan Arnold, Chicago, Ill.; Michael Burke, Bronx, N.Y.; M. Robert Paglee, Moorestown, N.J.; Robert Dooman, Chicago, Ill.; Phyllis Sato, Virginia Beach, Va.; Frank Regan, Carmel, Ind.; Steve Livesey, Palos Heights, Ill.; Forrest Fischer, Reston, Va.; Ben Sear, Astoria, N.Y.; Nancy Thompson, Hamilton College; Shel Khipple, Mt. Prospect, Ill.; Joe Spoto, Tampa, Fla. and Jeff Robbins, Long Beach, N.Y.