"Why are they tracking YOU AND ME?
IMHO, this is a tactic old leftist/communist regimes would have been proud of."
They aren't tracking you and me. They're looking at patterns of phone dialing. And no, the things I spoke of that happened during WWII did not use or require warrants. When you're searched at an airport, no warrant is involved. When the gov. requires you to submit a census form, no warrant is involved. When the police search your car based on reasonable suspicion, no warrant is involved. The Constitution does not require warrants for all intrusions into people's privacy, so long as such intrusions are deemed "reasonable" by the courts.
As far as I'm concerned, W's actions are moderate, highly reasonable, and appropriate. And no, the Communists would not be proud, mainly for that very reason.
That happened to me when I was a collage student. The officer only need to say the words "I smell pot". I knew he didn't, he knew he didn't, but those words gave him reasonable cause to search my car and belongings. His fishing expedition was quite unsuccessful and legally violated the Constitution.
Ahh, but they are tracking you and me. Our conversations, our phone records. And when you're searched at the airport, it's for the sake of protecting the aircraft and others. When my phone records are searched, it doesn't protect anyone when they dial. When the police search your car for reasonable suspicion, there's reasonable suspicion. When the government searches your phone records and/or listens in to your call...there's not.
This is in no small way about scope. There is no way millions of Americans--and, yes, again, including you and me--are worthy of reasonable suspicion. And there's no way you can make finding a needle in a haystack easier by making the haystack bigger and bigger.
The motives of the communists were obviously far less pure, to say the least, but as far as tactics go...this is right up their alley. And, for that matter, as far as the bureacratic mentality goes, it is, too.