Too bad the most important point Emily made was buried under a bunch of stuff. That point is: the laws allowing statistical fishing expeditions were passed for the sole purpose of ferreting out international terrorists. Once that it was NOT an international terrorism plot, those results should have been (and in my argument, legally are) off limits for local prosecutors, not info to be shared.

Sex crimes have long been the province of state's rights. How could the state prosecute this without info from the federal terrorist system? This is exactly why the Bush administration terrorism prosecution rules cannot remain--the constitutional protections of citizens will not remain. And I am NOT defending Spitzer. I just think that prosecutors have too much discretion, and one way they use it is by picking and choosing unpopular defendents to start with, and thereby eroding the protections for the rest of us. They will get to us, you wait and see. Or don't.