The NSA is on the line -- all of them

[survivor999]

An intelligence expert predicts we'll soon learn that cellphone and Internet companies also cooperated with the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on us.

By Kim Zetter

Having studied the NSA and its history extensively, were you surprised and concerned to discover that, since 2001, the agency has been amassing a database of phone records, and possibly other information, on U.S. citizens?

The fact that the federal government has my phone records scares the living daylights out of me. They won't learn much from them other than I like ordering pizza on Friday night and I don't call my mother as often as I should. But it should scare the living daylights out of everybody, even if you're willing to permit the government certain leeways to conduct the war on terrorism.

We should be terrified that Congress has not been doing its job and because all of the checks and balances put in place to prevent this have been deliberately obviated. In order to get this done, the NSA and White House went around all of the checks and balances. I'm convinced that 20 years from now we, as historians, will be looking back at this as one of the darkest eras in American history. And we're just beginning to sort of peel back the first layers of the onion.

Full story here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/15/aid_interview/index_np.html

[survivor999]

1. I bet this is right.

If they can do it technically, it means somebody is doing it. That's the way these things go. Nothing easier than rationalization, in case there are some ethical concerns.

[C_U_L8R]

2. There was never any doubt

that they wouldn't do this....
do you think a fascist would restrain themselves?
Why? The cookie jar of destroying the constitution is just too tantalizing.

[BadgerKid]

3. Thought they pinged universities

about a year or two ago for wiretapping equipment ... er, "network upgrade" ... to be installed. Big concern for how to pay for it, which translates as "raise tuition". Afterall, unis are a hotbed for liberal thinking.