Now it's the FBI spying on Americans

First, there were reports of DoD spying on anti-war/anti-Bush groups, then we had evidence that the Bush administration was extending its definitions of terror to include 'eco-terror' and 'narco-terror', next there was the revelation that the NSA is spying on US citizens, apparently in contravention of the law, and now, today, we have confirmation that the FBI has been looking at peaceful anti-Bush groups. NYTimes has the story. Or the WaPo if you prefer.

As it says in my descriptive blurb to the right, "This is not the America I was brought up to believe in."

Also, just as an interesting aside, notice that all three of Bush's supreme court nominees have made statements either directly or indirectly endorsing this administration's extreme interpretation of executive powers.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has up an interesting post theorizing that this program was basically a massive datamining effort, sifting through a significant portion of everybody's electronic communications, and that's why the FISA warrants weren't applied for. I've been collecting other possibilities here.

Also, do you think these issues will survive the Christmas break? Will they offer the Whitehouse a break in which to reframe what everyone's talking about?