NSA Domestic Spying

So its all here in the left-wing ;~) Wall Street Journal...

" Two former officials familiar with the data-sifting efforts said they work by starting withsome sort of lead, like a phone number or Internet address. In partnership with the FBI,the systems then can track all domestic and foreign transactions of people associated withthat item -- and then the people who associated with them, and so on, casting a gradually wider net. An intelligence official described more of a rapid-response effect: If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.

The haul can include records of phone calls, email headers and destinations, data on financial transactions and records of Internet browsing. The system also would collect information about other people, including those in the U.S., who communicated with people in Detroit.

The information doesn't generally include the contents of conversations or emails. But it can give such transactional information as a cellphone's location, whom a person is calling, and what Web sites he or she is visiting. For an email, the data haul can include the identities of the sender and recipient and the subject line, but not the content of the message.

Intelligence agencies have used administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI -- which don't need a judge's signature -- to collect and analyze such data, current and former intelligence officials said. If that data provided "reasonable suspicion" that a person, whether foreign or from the U.S., was linked to al Qaeda, intelligence officers could eavesdrop under the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program."

So what is "REASONABLE SUSPICION"? Having an Arabic sounding last name? What I'm even more worried about is oh I don't know, law enforcement officers/politicians having a reasonable suspicion to link each other with a foreign government or hmmm maybe even a prostitute that can allieve a certain NY governor's stress illegally. Besides wanting to fight terrorism, its also all about who is open to bribery and ruining careers etc.

The Republicans aren't going to be concerned about privacy until a Democrat is in the White House... then maybe they'll start worrying about who is spying on whom. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think the Dems should have this surveillance power either. This could get very nasty and we wouldn't even know about it... politicians would 'retire' or be humiliated in public... an effective coup d' etat. How could whistleblowers get information to government officials that could publicize it if they know their phone and emails are going to be spied on? Deep freeze on democracy if you ask me.... not to mention the 4th amendment.

This makes me so angry!