More questionable searches

Have to get a lot more details before I make up my mind on this, but it certainly could fall under the same fourth amendment umbrella as the NSA spying, the DoD database, and the rest. (a rare scoop for US News.)

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. ....

And, it sounds to me like the motivation for the leakers is to get their objections on the record before this blows up. If that motivation becomes prevalent, we could have a whole bunch more of these dubiously legal practices to discuss in the new year. There's a reasonable chance that every one of these classified program leaks, including the secret prisons story, is motivated by CYA.

Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. ....

One source close to the program said ..... "The targets were almost all U.S. citizens," says the source. "A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal."

There are also issues of public vs private property in this. As well as an unmentioned issue of racial/religious profiling.