ABSTRACT The NSA’s vast domestic surveillance operations have brought to the forefront the age-old debate between the need to safeguard national security through extra-constitutional actions and the desire to uphold constitutional rights. This study analyzed the narratives offered by editorials and op-ed columns in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal to see if it reflected a press that was fulfilling a watchdog role by critiquing NSA’s domestic surveillance or served as a legitimizing agent of the agency’s surveillance activities. The emergent themes suggest that The New York Times and The Washington Post, fulfilling the watchdog role, think the NSA surveillance during both time periods went too far, infringing on Americans civil rights, while The Wall Street Journal, served as a legitimizing agent, championing the NSA surveillance programs and argued that giving up civil rights was a price that needed to be paid in order to combat terrorism. While taking different stances, all three publications do attempt to sustain the democratic structure, they just come at it from different points of view.

中文翻译：

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国家安全局国内监督的新闻叙述

摘要国家安全局广泛的国内监视行动使人们在需要通过宪法外行动维护国家安全与维护宪法权利之间进行了古老的辩论。这项研究分析了《纽约时报》，《华盛顿邮报》和《华尔街日报》社论和专栏文章所提供的叙述，以了解它是否反映出通过批评国家安全局的国内监视来履行看门狗作用的媒体，还是充当了媒体的角色。机构监视活动的合法代理人。新兴的主题表明，履行监督职责的《纽约时报》和《华盛顿邮报》认为，两个时期的NSA监视范围过大，侵犯了美国人的民权，而《华尔街日报》则是合法代理人，支持美国国家安全局（NSA）的监视计划，并认为放弃民权是打击恐怖主义必须付出的代价。尽管这三种出版物采取不同的立场，但都试图维持民主结构，只是从不同的角度来探讨它。