The timing of the FISA Court changes is apparently coming at a very opportune time. It seems the plotters in the recently bungled car bomb plot in London had contact info for people here in the US:

As an American-born spokesman for Al Qaeda threatens to blow up American embassies abroad, intelligence gleaned from last month’s British “doctors plot” of car bombers suggests that a Qaeda cell is on the loose in the American homeland.

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.

“Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States,” the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. “This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well.” But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms.

This is the kind of news which makes the hair on the back of my net stand up. There is now some clear evidence of overseas terrorists in contact with people here in the US. No wonder the FISA updates sailed through a stubborn and naive Congress. Still, one wonders why 183 Democrats opposed the use of this kind of information to track down possible al-Qaeda attacks here in the US of A.