Big Brother is Listening...

[lagilman]

One comment. One.

I give up. Apparently, you're all even more jaded than I am and I can't keep up...

--------------------------------------------


Paper Reports NSA Collecting Phone Records
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The government is secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls in an effort to build a database of every call made within the country, it was reported Thursday.

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The program does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called (italics mine), the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program that has been acknowledged by President Bush. The president said last year that he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden _ Bush's choice to take over leadership of the CIA _ was set to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA's secret domestic eavesdropping program. As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking program.

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operates within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

----------------------------------

Can I get a massive WtF, brothers and sisters? This isn't 'suspected terrorists' being tapped. This is you and me. The government shoving its noses into who we talk to, for how long, and does anyone doubt that listening in is the next step, assuming it's not already?


Anyone got a definition of 'police state' handy? seriously. Does George W want to go down in history as the only president forcibly removed from the White House by the people? I'm not talking about an impeachment, or a vote of no confidence (lord, I wish we had that) but an actual 'throww the bum out, hiney bouncing down the white house lawn, chair tumbling after him' sort of removal. Because right about now? I'll volunteer for the chair-toss.

Comments

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

WTF!?!?!

police state
n.
A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.

*this message has been brought to you care of a dictionary, where words and their proper meanings are still important.

[(Anonymous)]

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls
One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program
Can I get a massive WtF, brothers and sisters? This isn't 'suspected terrorists' being tapped. This is you and me.

You mean to say AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest are *already* tapping conversations? Otherwise, what would they have to turn over?

If they're not already tapping conversations, then the phone records under discussion are those of caller and called numbers. That isn't tapping, under the definition I know. It looks like they're fishing for who are calling terrorists' numbers.

-- Katherine

word use, continued.

[lagilman]

If they're not already tapping conversations, then the phone records under discussion are those of caller and called numbers. That isn't tapping, under the definition I know.


Tapped -- v. tr. To select, as for membership in an organization;

Taped -- v. intr. To make a recording on magnetic tape.

Re: word use, continued.

[(Anonymous)]

You noted:
Tapped -- v. tr. To select, as for membership in an organization;

However, you were the one who originally wrote:
This isn't 'suspected terrorists' being tapped.

I merely pointed out:
If they're not already tapping conversations, then the phone records under discussion are those of caller and called numbers. That isn't tapping, under the definition I know.

The definition I was referring to was:
Tapped -- v. tr. To cut in on (a telephone or telegraph wire) to get information

You also wrote:
Taped -- v. intr. To make a recording on magnetic tape.

Note that this is conjugated as taped and taping, not tapped and tapping. However, if this is what you meant, do you also mean to say that the phone companies -- Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth and Qwest -- are already taping phone conversations and that these tapes are what the NSA is requesting?

-- Katherine

[lagilman]

What I said, and meant, was that it wasn't just suspected terrorists being tapped, or singled out for government observation and intervention. I never said that they were taping converstions, -- in fact, I wondered if that was what came next. So your "That isn't tapping, under the definition I know" didn't folloow, logically. That's why I clarified the word use.


However, if this is what you meant, do you also mean to say that the phone companies -- Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth and Qwest -- are already taping phone conversations and that these tapes are what the NSA is requesting?

No. What I said was: "does anyone doubt that listening in is the next step, assuming it's not already?" Direct quote from the original post.