We can't connect the dots if we can't collect the dots.

Lileks is brilliant. His off the cuff remark summed up this whole phone records controversy in one line. Do you want the Federal government to protect you and try to find the terrorists living down the street? You know how they do that? Data mining. If the NSA gets a phone number from a captured Al Qaida cell phone they look to see who he has been calling, then they look to see who that person has been calling. The mine this data looking for patterns, trying to find a terrorist cell.

I have been cruising the lefty-independent sites and the predictable '1984', the Constitution is being trampled, ect.

Even if they didn't listen to the actual telephone conversations, a pentrap (capturing numbers dialed) is ILLEGAL without a court order.

Bush deserves Hell. The FBI, ATF, CIA, and NSA deserve hell along with him.

It's treason to the Constitution and our laws. Pretty soon we won't have the laws and the Constitution to cite because all of these people are doing everything they can to try and abolish them and put in new laws that strip us of our rights.

I am sure the President and Dick Cheney are buying up all the surplus railroad box cars to start sending us off to the re-education camps just as soon as the Sperry Super Computer in the basement at the NSA has the list completed.

I don't like the idea that anyone is keeping track of who I call or where I go on the web, but it is happening. Mostly by the people you do business with. Somewhere out there you have a e-profile. What you buy, how you buy it, if you pay your bills on time, what websites you visit, for how long, how many minutes you spend on the phone during what times, and yes, who you call. You are a file that is bought and sold.

"As a general rule, Qwest does not release customer account information to unaffiliated third parties without your permission unless we have a business relationship with those companies where the disclosure is appropriate."

If the NSA can crunch this data, the same data the phone company uses to market products and services, to catch the next sleeper cell before they blow up my kid's school, I will live with it.

Is it legal? It depends on what your view of Article II is.

To summarize, my very preliminary sense is that there are no Fourth Amendment issues here but a number of statutory problems under statutes such as FISA and the pen register statute. Of course, all of the statutory questions are subject to the possible argument that Article II trumps those statutes. As I have mentioned before, I don't see the support for the strong Article II argument in existing caselaw, but there is a good chance that the Administration's legal argument in support of the new law will rely on it.

So I guess I will wait for President Bush to repeal the Bill of Rights while I pack my bag for the camps, or will I need any luggage?