Not even Nixon was this evil

The revelation that the National Security Agency has been tracking the phone calls of citizens made within the United States, in direct contraction to previous statements on the matter, is more than a little troubling. It seems to me to be a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable search and seizure” without a warrant. When this first came to light, I wasn’t that concerned relative to the other horrible things the government is doing in the name of war on terror. I was wrong to be so indifferent. Via Atrios, it seems that the NSA may be using this data to ferret out sources used by ABC news. The opening line from the story:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

People, that is pretty damn terrifying. It would appear that our nation’s spy agencies are spending an enormous amount of time and money combating dissent, rather than say, finding terrorists. This is so Orwellian, I almost think someone is just making it up. These people need to go now. The Constitution should not be treated as a suggestion box. Hell, even that paranoid bastard Nixon didn’t go this far.