Not much else going on in the news today, so I'll highlight a bit from
Jonah Goldberg that I think is right on the money:
Before 9/11, the system for listening to conversations between terrorists abroad and their accomplices on our soil had all the flexibility and creativity of John Ashcroft at a disco contest. Even with warrants issued by the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, the National Security Agency usually had to erase the "American" side of the conversation between suspected terrorists before handing them over to the FBI.
Most Americans think that sort of thing is crazy. But, to keep the frenzy alive, we talk about spying on "certain Americans" — when in reality we're trying to stop barbarians from killing "certain Americans."
That boils this whole non-story down to its essence... The whole NSA wiretapping thing is about "connecting dots" which, as I recall, was something that these same folks were complaing about not happening prior to 9/11. And ultimately, this is about protecting Americans, not violating their privacy.
