What Happened With the Information Gleaned From the Illegal Searchs?

by Mary

Laura Rozen asks what happened with those thousands of unwarranted searches on US citizens? Why haven't we seen lots of arrests? Kevin Drum believes it's because the primary intent was not to lead to court cases or arrests in the US, but for overseas operations. However, Kevin's theory doesn't jibe with the concern of former FISA Judge Robertson who thought the illegal information was being used to obtain other FISA warrants:

Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

Another question to ask is how many people in the world have been "disappeared" behind these searches?

And when you are looking at what it means to be affliated with terrorists, does that mean the Prescott Bush would have been "affliated" with Hitler because he helped finance the Nazi regime?