THE NSA AND YOU...

"THE NSA AND YOU....I've written about this before (see here), but USA Today's Leslie Cauley has a major story today about the NSA's program to collect data not just on international calls, but on purely domestic calls as well. It started right after 9/11:

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

...Last year...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. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

The rules for collecting data about phone calls are different from the rules about listening in on the content of phone calls, so I don't know what the legal situation here is. However, although most domestic carriers cooperated with the NSA, one of them didn't: Qwest."
Political Animal

All hail Qwest for thier true patriotism.

I am now calling for a class action against the other phone companies for cooperating with this illegal request from the NSA and violating our privacy. Hit them back where it hurts.