Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects

Guess we're losing our rights for nothing after all: "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.

Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as 'terrorist surveillance' and summed it up by declaring that 'if you're talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why.' But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no."