But in its three-page public report, sent to Senate and House leaders, the Justice Department said it could not yet provide data on how many times the FBI secretly sought telephone, Internet and banking records about U.S. citizens and residents without court approval.

The department is still compiling those numbers amid an internal investigation of the FBI's improper - and in some cases illegal - use of so-called national security letters. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval.

From their press release today:

"Broadening FISA would only reward and legitimize both the Justice Department and executive branch's numerous violations of the law," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Giving the Department of Justice more latitude to conduct warrantless searches is ludicrous when you consider that it has shown no restraint with the power it already has. If a little boy destroys a tricycle, you don't hand him the keys to the car."

While the Administration claims that the proposed FISA changes would "modernize" the law, in truth they would gut the judicial oversight mechanisms carefully crafted to prevent abuse, while expanding the scope of communications that can be intercepted under FISA. Ironically, the changes would return intelligence gathering to the pre-FISA era and earlier, when warrants were largely optional and abusive spying was not limited to people who