> the dossier wasn't the beginning of the investigation, as > we've seen in multiple articles that came out over the > last few weeks.

Yes, a pile of articles, stating without proof, the same thing, all coming out at the same time .. almost as if they were coordinated. When specific facts of said articles are proven to be incorrect, small retractions that never make the news cycle are issued.

  > the only reason his "associates" were caught up in 
  > surveillance reports is because they called criminals 
  > who were already under surveillance. It's like if the 
  > FBI is wire-tapping Al Capone, and you called Al Capone. 
  > Sure, you'd get listened to, but they aren't tapping YOU.

It was the unmasking that was illegal and blatantly politically motivated. NSA has wide discretion to conduct surveillance on people outside of the US, but there are supposed to be legal barriers to snooping on US citizens. If the NSA picks up communications from a US citizen in the course of monitoring a foreign national, it is practice to "mask" the identity of the US person. Additionally, the identification of a US citizen mentioned in discussions between two foreign nationals is supposed to be masked.