Initially, this looks bad.

The Department of Homeland Security improperly gathered intelligence on the Nation of Islam for eight months in 2007 when the leader of the black Muslim group, Louis Farrakhan, was in poor health and appeared to be yielding power, according to government documents released Wednesday.

The intelligence gathering violated domestic spying rules because analysts took longer than 180 days to determine whether the U.S-based group or its American members posed a terrorist threat. Analysts also disseminated their report too broadly, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.

Sounds damning, doesn’t it.

But then I came across this little detail that I think makes all the difference in the world.

Charles E. Allen, who was DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the time, said that although violations were unintentional and inadvertent -- only publicly available information was collected -- the report should never have been issued.

Hold on. Only public information was gathered. In other words, only what was available in libraries anon the internet. That does not rise to the level of spying in my book – unless the research paper I just assigned my college students requires them to “spy” on government agencies and lobbying special interest groups like the NRA and MADD.

Frankly, if the law prohibits the collection and retention of such information by government agencies, then the law is an ass.