April 15, 2015
USA Today needed an articulate voice with firsthand knowledge about the law, about national security, and about the government’s data mining efforts to glean intelligence on terrorist and other violent organizations hostile to the United States. The newspaper found it at McGuireWoods in Washington partner George Terwilliger.
USA Today had argued in an editorial that the federal government crossed the line in its collection of records about telephone calls in 1992. The newspaper seeks out opposing viewpoints to present to its readers. Terwilliger was the perfect choice. He was deputy U.S. attorney general under President George H.W. Bush and drew from his own experience to write an authoritative, compelling but respectful rebuttal to the newspaper’s position in this op-ed column published in the national newspaper’s opinion page on Wednesday.