It’s been a big day for news relating to the National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program ordered by President George W. Bush. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been going on the last couple of days.

Information gained from the program is only supposed to be used for intelligence purposes, not for law enforcement purposes, according to the setup with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Specifically, it’s not to be used to obtain a FISA warrant. But that may have happened twice, prompting the program to be briefly shut down in 2004.

Two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), have asked the executives of AT&T, Sprint and Verizon (formerly MCI) to turn over company records relating to the program. The companies are widely believed to be cooperating with NSA in implementing the program.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and director of national intelligence Gen. Michael Hayden briefed the Senate intelligence committee on the program today at the direction of the President. The House committee received a briefing yesterday.

And after the passage of the Patriot Act, requests — with or without warrants — for wiretaps on telephone lines are way up, putting a strain on smaller telephone companies. For instance, small carrier CenturyTel received an estimated 300 national security related requests in 2005, for a customer base of 2.5 million.

Do a little math on that, and ask yourself if we really have that many terrorists in our borders?