The New York Times reports on the Administration's new tools for domestic spying...and qualms about them:

"From New York City to Seattle, police officials are looking to do away with rules that block them from spying on people and groups without evidence that a crime has been committed. They say these rules, forced on them in the 1970's and 80's to halt abuses, now prevent them from infiltrating mosques and other settings where terrorists might plot. "

"At the same time, federal and local police agencies are looking for systematic, high-tech ways to root out terrorists before they strike. In a sense, the scuba dragnet was cumbersome, old-fashioned police work, albeit on a vast scale. Now officials are hatching elaborate plans for dumping gigabytes of delicate information into big computers, where it would be blended with public records and stirred with sophisticated software. "

"In recent days, federal law enforcement officials have spoken ambitiously and often about their plans to remake the F.B.I. as a domestic counterterrorism agency. But the spy story has been unfolding, quietly and sometimes haltingly, for more than a year now, since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "

"Some people in law enforcement remain unconvinced that all these new tools are needed, and some experts are skeptical that high-tech data mining will bring much of value to light."

"Still, civil libertarians increasingly worry about how law enforcement might wield its new powers. They say the nation is putting at risk the very thing it is fighting for: the personal freedoms and rights embodied in the Constitution. Moreover, they say, authorities with powerful technology will inevitably blunder, as became evident in October when an audit revealed that the Navy had lost nearly two dozen computers authorized to process classified information."

There's much, much more. Go over and read the whole thing.