Justice Dept. wants to take away even more of your privacy

Bush's current level of warrantless wiretapping isn't good enough, apparently.

As the Washington Post tells us today, "The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years."

The Post cites critics of the proposal as saying that it would "enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era."

According to the Post article, Michael German, policy counsel for the ACLU, "said the proposed rule may be misunderstood as permitting police to collect intelligence even when no underlying crime is suspected, such as when a person gives money to a charity that independently gives money to a group later designated a terrorist organization."

Along with the usual right-to-privacy concerns, this is the sort of thing that worries me.

Imagine the outrage if Bill Clinton's administration had tried something like this.