NSA spying on tens of millions of Americans' phone calls

[Guest guest]

NSA spying on tens of millions of Americans' phone calls

 

 

Remember when we were told that the NSA was only spying on the phone

calls of terrorists? And that at least one end of those phone calls

was from outside the U.S.? Well, it turns out Bush and friends think

there are tens of millions of American terrorists, and that Bush is so

bad at geography he thinks the U.S. is outside the U.S.

 

From USA TODAY: " The National Security Agency has been secretly

collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans,

using data provided by AT & T, Verizon and BellSouth ... Air Force Gen.

Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the

director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In

that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic

call-tracking program ... In defending the previously disclosed

program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on

international calls. 'In other words,' Bush explained, 'one end of the

communication must be outside the United States.' ... Sources,

however, say that is not the case.

 

.... One major telecommunications company declined to participate in

the program: Qwest. ... Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was

proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA

court. According to the sources, the agency refused. The NSA's

explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. 'They told (Qwest)

they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,'

one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA

rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from

the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this

version of events. "

 

http://users.livejournal.com/_eric_m_/394985.html