Domestic spying: illegal AND ineffective

FBI to NSA: why are you dropping all this useless data in our laps?

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

Another juicy detail is that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III contacted top admin officials to ask whether the whole program was even legal. He was {shock}deferred to Justice Department legal opinions{/shock}, which I'm sure were filled with {sincerity}the highest quality of legal reasoning{/sincerity}.

Story from the Times.