we always knew the NSA was peeking into our bedrooms and rifling through our underwear drawers

[bigtree]

from Swampland at TIME: http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/in_other_news_the_nsa_has_been.html

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003. Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad's Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007. "Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another," said Faulk.

One whistleblower said that NSA employees would entertain themselves listening to "phone sex" and "pillow talk." But I am sure this was all done to protect us from the terrorists . . .


http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/in_other_news_the_nsa_has_been.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. I imagine that's just the tip of the iceberg and if Nixon's people

thought it ok to wiretap the opposition political party, I see no reason, human nature in it's most cynical form would change from that temptation when given a free pass to do so on a much larger scale.

Between the total invasion of our personal/private lives by Big Brother and the willful illegal wiretapping of opposition political parties, our democratic republic can't last under those carcinogenic circumstances.

Here's my cosmic theory, there is a direct correlation between the lack of trust and confidence exhibited in our financial markets to the lack of trust and confidence our current authoritarian regime reflects toward the American People's right of privacy, freedom and our Constitution. In both cases there is a an institutional lack of good faith.

[bigtree]

2. right, if they're wiretapping sex

. . . they're using the spying to advance their politics.

This revelation should spur Congress to press for a moratorium on domestic spying.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Yes, but it could also be strategic political wiretapping, not related to

sex or digging up dirt on someone.

If I know ahead of time what approach you will use in advertising, debates, speeches or basic political strategy because I've wiretapped your office, this would give me a major advantage.

[riverdeep]

3. But, but, they said 'trust us'.

And like the suckers we are (collectively, anyway) we did. 'This is absolutely needed to protect national security! Do you love terrorists or something?!?' And our side backed down on FISA. Smart move.