Fore much more information on the bills which will soon be law:
http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_7.10.shtml
Some of the things that this could mean, to you:
1) If they have reason to believe you have done something illegal, for example, broken copyright laws by downloading an MP3, they no longer need any kind of court order if your ISP agrees to allow them to put you under surveillance.
2) Under this authorized surveillance, they can monitor any and all internet activity of yours for as long as they want. They are no longer limited to only consider content that is relevant to a search warrant, nor are they limited by time.
Their argument is that the ISP retains all rights to do whatever it wishes with information travelling through it, and thus the 4th amendment
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
is considered not applicable because the ISP is voluntarily turning over data.
3) The government would have increasing power to search your home or office WITHOUT informing you. They could seize items without your knowledge.
4) The government may not intercept the "content" of web pages, etc. that you view, but they CAN intercept the destination server, and perhaps the full URL -- the law is very nebulously defined as to what is "content" vs. "routing, addressing, or signalling". This is a tricky way that they use to get around the laws which required a court order to view your activities.
By expanding an aready nebulous law (one which allowed them to obtain records of phone numbers dialed without judicial review) into allowing them to obtain internet sites visited without judicial review is a huge leap. Knowing who someone called tells you nothing about the conversation they had -- knowing what site someone went to tells you a HUGE amount about what they did.
5) None of these law enforcement beef-ups are restricted to only cases where suspected terrorism is involved. This means that LEA in any criminal investigation can use these techniques, which in the past have all been illegal.
IMO, this bill is a HUGE violation of our rights to privacy, and, what's more, IT'S NOT GOING TO CATCH TERRORISTS. Anyone who spends a little time and effort could circumvent these laws. Any terrorist organization with at least a few thousand dollars in resources could do this EASILY. All they'd need to do would be set up a secure proxy server, and encrypt emails. It would cost next to nothing, they could keep their servers in any country they felt like, and every single extra measure that this bill provides would be worthless.
Bills like this frighten me. Yes, something needs to be done about terrorism, but a bill which has no practical usefulness in fighting terrorism, and which has significant possibility of being misused to violate Americans' rights to privacy, is not the answer, and never will be.