Tom Brady(notes) has been drawing a lot of attention from Massachusetts law enforcement, but not in the way you might think.

Audits of Massachusetts law enforcement officials reveal thousands of illicit criminal record searches for Brady and other state celebrities like Paul Pierce, James Taylor and Matt Damon. While Brady wasn't mentioned by name, a state official said the New England Patriots quarterback had been the subject of 968 such database searches.

Based on repeated viewings of "Law & Order" (only the Jerry Orbach ones), I'm imaging that those 968 searches were probably bored desk jockeys typing Brady's name into the computer's criminal search engine to see what popped up. It's like when you search for yourself on the Internet while procrastinating at work (or from writing NFL-related blog posts), only when you do it it's not illegal or immoral.

Not to trivialize Brady's right to privacy, but seeing as how TMZ and US Weekly have provided the most minute updates about the All-Pro quarterback's boot-wearing habits, I can't imagine how beneficial such information was to Massachusetts police and officials. When Brady sneezes it gets reported by the tabloids, what did officials really expect to find out about him? Are they that pressed to get a leg up on their fantasy sports leagues? 

Civil rights activists are concerned that the snooping won't stop with celebrities, which is a legitimate worry. I don't think Brady will lose too much sleep about this situation though.

Still, it's a bizarre little story that could definitely have some heads rolling (or some heads suspended) up in Massachusetts. Maybe this will be the plot line for "The Departed II".