Its amazing how much the government can get away with in the name of "national security".

The USA PATRIOT Act already removed many rights of American citizens "temporarily" in the interests of fighting "terrorism" and defending "national security". Most of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act have expiration dates, but I wouldn't be surprised if they get quietly extended indefinitely during some secret session of Congress- closed to the public for "national security" reasons.

In 1994 the FBI got the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) pushed through because they were having issues spying on us with call waiting and call forwarding. So, they were granted more wire tapping rights and we lost some of our privacy rights and the telephone companies were required to comply with provisions that allow the FBI to tap more easily.

Now, the FBI claims that voice over IP and other Internet telephony technologies again hinder their ability to track "terrorists" and defend "national security". Tapping ISP's falls outside of any scope they've been granted so they are lobbying the FCC to push for an expansion of CALEA that would require ISP's to implement some sort of central hub that can be used to tap and monitor their customers.

Here is a ZDNet article on the subject: FBI wants to tap Net phones