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Maybe the similarity is in the attitude the government is displaying towards these phone records.
They way I'm reading the article, it looks like the FBI is requesting phone records from the phone company after they determine that there may be information there that is pertinent to an investigation. They're not searching this supposed database that the NSA is keeping. It's two different things. The questionable aspect is that they can use NSLs rather than warrents - but that is clearly in accordance with the Patriot Act. Now it would really be something to see the how that would fare against the 4th Amendment at the Supreme Court level!
But really - if the FBI is investigating a crime and they know that a journalist has had contact with the perpetrator, it only seems responsible to me to get their hands on those phone records. This just leads me back to where I started, which is wondering how much of the journalist-source priviledge is fact and how much is fiction...
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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
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