Man was AAP dead on when he noted the inevitable progression of each intrusion into personal privacy from international to domestic.

MSNBC/Newseek reports that the governmenthas obtained tens of thousands of domestic banking records using a little-known provision of the patriot act. Yeah, that Patriot act? You know, the one that was supposed to be used to fight terror? Well, now it's just being used for law enforcement, as always happens in these cases. You give the police new powers for terror suspects and they use them on everybody they can. When will people wake up to this? They see no problem using anti-terror powers against the US citizenry at large.

Under a section of the USA Patriot Act passed by Congress in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks, Treasury officials were given new powers to direct U.S. banks and other financial institutions to search their records for accounts or transactions involving any individuals or groups who come under scrutiny during investigations of terrorism and money laundering cases.
...
Once there is a positive "match" showing a suspect individual or company has conducted a financial transaction with a U.S. bank, FINCEN then notifies the law enforcement agencies, which can use the existence of a reported "match" as the basis for a grand jury or administrative subpoena. The Treasury records show that U.S. agencies have used the program to obtain 1,206 grand jury subpoenas and 328 administrative subpoenas. It has also led, according to the Treasury records, to 90 indictments, 79 arrests and 10 convictions.

An expansion of police power to fight terrorism inevitably becomes an expansion of police power against ordinary US citizens. Big surprise. At least this has a semblance of legality, but I don't think it was meant to prospectively investigate people for tax problems, lying to the IRS or whatever is setting off their red flags.