Federal Phone-Tapping Only Taps "Bad Guys"?

We're all aware of federal tapping Verizon, and now the "leaker" has emerged. Initial MSM reports seemed to lean toward the issue of breach of civil liberties . Even the New York Times tut-tutted the Obama administrations defense of the practice. (By the way, be sure that if they've tapped Verizon, they've tapped everyone else; otherwise the practice of logging phone calls to prevent terrorism makes absolutely no sense - but you knew that, right?) While Americans typically snooze right through the loss of their liberties, this particular practice did seem to catch the attention of many of us. I suppose that's a plus. Of course, check in a few weeks to see if this all just blows over - which really would be a shame, and indicate that people will pretty much put up with anything, even the loss of liberty, in order to - I'm just guessing here - return to the distracted, superficial lives that are more important to them than just about anything else. How else to explain the existence of most TV shows?

Anyway, what's fun (if you can find amusement in all this) about this NY Times article are some comments by three of our esteemed politicians. (I'll skip over the reporting by the Times for now, which for years now seems to belie its "All the news that fit to print" claim - a topic for another time.)

First, we have Dianne Feinstein who claims this information is necessary to in case someone becomes a terrorist in the future:

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said on Thursday that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. 

If you don't need any reason whatsoever to think that someone might be a terrorist to violate their privacy, why stop with phone calls? Using this logic, shouldn't ever transaction of every American be recorded somewhere? You have to wonder if that's not in the cards (or maybe even under way now). 
 
Next, Senator Saxby Chambliss, who manages to basically say in the face of the clear evidence that information has been collected on all Americans (and who really knows for how long?), that, in fact, we've only gathered information on the "bad guys" - that is "significant information." Read this:

Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”

The statement makes no sense. It's not logical. If the information gathered on the rest of us wasn't or isn't significant, why is it being gathered? hHe basically ignores the issue, hoping, I suppose, to distract us easily distracted Americans by saying something that really doesn't address the issue, but makes him sound like he knows what he's talking about.

Then there's this very serious, even grave, statement by from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who "introduced" the Patriot Act in 2001. But notice the claim he makes here:

“As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Author? You must be kidding. I'd be shocked if he even read the thing. Seriously, none of our politicians, as you're probably aware, could have read it even if they wanted to. There wasn't enough time from introduction to passage. The fact is, that act was already written and sitting on the shelf for the right moment to be introduced and that moment turned out to be 9/11. This isn't the speculation of a conspiracy theorist. It's simple fact. There's no way the bill could have written so quickly - but that's something we can talk about another time. As for Sensenbrenner, he's exaggerating his role...actually I don't think it's too much to say he's lying here*. Author indeed.

So here we find two politicians defending this tapping, and the guy questioning it lying. And you wonder why people hold politicians in such low esteem.

*CORRECTION: Apparently to "author" a bill simply means that your name appears first on it when it is introduced. So technically Sensenbrenner would not be lying here. However, the use of the word "author" is, I believe, misleading when used in common conversation here, out of the context of the environs of Congress. So I think my conclusions stand in any case.