FBI admits to going after journalist's phone records. I had no idea that ABC was a member of al-Qaida, did you?

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.

"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.

In a statement, the FBI press office said its leak investigations begin with the examination of government phone records.

"The FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information," the statement said.

Officials say that means that phone records of reporters will be sought if government records are not sufficient.

Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters.

Do you remember when we used to live in America? Man those were the days weren't they? We had civil rights, and privacy, and a fully functioning government who did its best to keep us safe from the bad people of the world. I believe that was sometime back in the 90's. Yeah the 90's, now that was when America really meant something!