The FBI claims that John Ashcroft "loosened restrictions" that confined its investigative power, making it possible to investigate "protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities." In other words, the administration deems local vandalism at a fur farm or logging site to be worthy of an anti-terrorist response. Is diverting the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts from local conduits of foreign terrorism to local disruption of businesses making the country safer from foreign attack?

The FBI denies that ideology plays a role in its decision to snoop, but it's difficult to believe that political philosophy isn't the primary motivation that drives the FBI's choice of targets:

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

No anti-abortion protestors. No anti-gay activists. No white supermacist groups. No collections of nutcases who want to blow up federal courthouses. Instead, the FBI wants to chase after Catholics, Vegans, and PETA members: terrorists all.

Is this why Bush wants to bypass the judiciary to authorize wiretaps on his own authority? Is he afraid that even the most conservative judge would balk at wiretapping a group of Catholic workers, simply because an FBI agent brands them as "semi-communistic"?

Where have our civil rights gone?