Surveillance Starts at Home

A story in the Washington Times magazine Insight contradicts the administration's longstanding claim that only conversations in which at least one party is overseas were targeted under the NSA's program of warrantless wiretaps:

[Law enforcement] sources provided guidelines to how the administration has employed the surveillance program. They said the National Security Agency in cooperation with the FBI was allowed to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of any American believed to be in contact with a person abroad suspected of being linked to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

At that point, the sources said, all of the communications of that American would be monitored, including calls made to others in the United States. The regulations under the administration's surveillance program do not require any court order.

Hat tip: AMERICABlog