NSA monitoring all overseas communications?

Drip, drip, drip.

Now, we learn that the National Security Agency could be monitoring electronically all international communications by American citizens. The thesis of the story is supported mainly by outside experts on the NSA, including James Bamford, who has written two books about the agency. If Bush's illegal spying on Americans had not been revealed, this story would not be big news.

That having been said, there is much in the Boston Globe's story to alarm privacy advocates.

The NSA's system of monitoring e-mails and phone calls to check for search terms has been used for decades overseas, where the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply, declassified records have shown.

But since Bush's order in 2001, Bamford and other specialists said, the same process has probably been used to sort through international messages to and from the United States, though humans have never seen the vast majority of the data.

''The collection of this data by automated means creates new privacy risks," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group that has studied computer-filtered surveillance technology through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

Among the risks, he said, is that the spy agency's computers will collect personal information that has no bearing on national security, and that intelligence agents programming those computers will be tempted to abuse their power to eavesdrop for personal or political gain.

But even when no personal information intercepted by the NSA's computers make it to human eyes and ears, Rotenberg said, the mere fact that spy computers are monitoring the calls and e-mails may also violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether automated surveillance of phone calls and e-mails, without a warrant, is constitutional.

The elephant in the room is the question over what information the Bush administration has been collecting and whether they were, in fact, tempted to use it for personal and/or political gain.

If George W. Bush ordered illegal surveillance of American citizens for the reasons he has cited, it would be almost more trouble than it was worth. Witness the current controversy and the amount of time and energy Bush has had to expend addressing it.

Under the principle of risk versus reward, it only makes sense to do this if the information he sought simply could not come under review by any court, not even the court that exists for the purpose of issuing warrants for such wiretapping. What sort of information would that be? The possibilities are endless, but there was an election taking place during the surveillance window. We won't know unless or until the list is made public.

As I have written before, the American people have a right to know, within reason, who Bush has been listening to. It is time to release the list.