First, I try like hell to keep my political opinions away from R'osity, but I just can't help myself.  So please, salt shakers out everyone. If you want to debate me or talk about this stuff later, please, send me a sitemail and I'd be happy to discuss this civilly there. :c) 

<><><>

Bryster, excellent points.  I heard a story about just that thing by Walter E Williams who was subbing for Rush Limbaugh one day that addressed just your point of overzealous surveillance.  A woman was telling him that if he did nothing wrong, he had nothing to be afraid of.  To illustrate his point that the issue wasn't innocence or guilt, he asked to do a simple experiment.  She agreed, and he asked her to give him her purse for inspection.  Reluctantly, she gave it to him.  Carefully, he extracted every last item in the purse, and began to take notes down on it's contents.  She was very uncomfortable about this, especially when it was discovered she was on anti-depressant medication and he made note of the label.  After he was done, he put back every item, filed his notes and then asked her how she felt.  She admitted she felt violated.  He told her that she had nothing to fear if she was innocent.  That didn't help her sense of violation though.  And that, he said, was the whole point.  Regardless of innocence or guilt, they should not have the right to violate you in such a way... it's none of their damn business without cause of criminal activity.

<><><>

Sackrat, thanks for pointing out also that the FISA court was a Carter Admin creation.  The thing also a lot of people forget is that Carter created FISA as a way to stop our foreign intelligence from getting foreign intel.  Seems he had a problem with us actually knowing what was going on in foreign countries and protecting ourselves.  See also his executive order banning assassination of political targets too.  Assassinating Saddam, for instance could have probably saved tens of thousands of lives. Jamie Gorelick and the "Intel Wall" legislation only made things worse, essentially preventing the US intel community from being able to share information and stop "little" things like 9/11.  And the last thing we need is to start treating this like a law enforcement issue instead of the war they've been fighting against us since the 1970's.

Ultimately, I don't want an invasive government.  In fact I'd love to see a bajillion things that the government does ended and get them back to being small, cheap and generally out of everyone's lives.  I'm all for getting rid of FISA as well as the Patriot Act and just let the CIA do what it does best: find the enemies and neutralize them.  I don't think the telecoms should be viewed as criminals when they are providing essential information to defending our nation against dangerous people who wish us death or enslavement.  That makes them patriotic in my book.  When it comes to defending us against those who wish to destroy the USA and it's Constitution, I want them competent, vigorous and vigilant against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  And that's the key distinction.  But it's a fine line to walk that requires a constant vigilance by it's citizens as so it is not abused.

Two quotes, only one that I can attribute are:

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

and

"Those who desire security and safety over freedom deserve neither." Ben Franklin

And as a final point, the rights of Americans should never be conferred onto non-Americans, and ESPECIALLY enemies of America.