Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects
This is highly disturbing. If it is actually true that these illegal wiretaps have revealed very little from these supposed "known terrorists" then it is no wonder that the Administration wouldn't even go through the virtual rubber stamp of the FISA court. Even in THAT court you must show a teeny tiny smidgeon of evidence before the warrant is granted, and if Homeland Security can't even reach THAT tiny standard it's no wonder their illegal doings haven't yielded anything of use.
The "only tapping phones when US Citizens are speaking to known terrorists" is also quite problematic if you consider that Homeland Security found a kooky vegan picketing a ham shop enough to warrant a full investigation, we can only imagine what their criteria for "known terrorists" is.
Secret laws, secret lists, secret surveillance, secret trials, secret evidence, secret regulations, etc. When is this going to stop? Not until someone with power and money is caught in this secret net? Ok, one won't count because most people might not notice, maybe it will take a few hundred.
Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects:
Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use.