the government is spying on you

The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court received a total of 3,436.

The 11-judge panel modified 179 of the Bush administration's requests. By contrast, only one was modified in the preceding four years. The court has reportedly handled almost 20,000 applications since it was set up, and has rejected only a handful.

Reasons for the modifications were not stated and could range from minor alterations to more substantive changes.

The highly classified court was set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the wake of Cold War spy fears and President Richard Nixon's misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the anti-Vietnam war movement and other political dissidents.