Saturday, December 15, 2007

Do you really want George Bush listening to you call your sweetie?

Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Scott Shane, in the NY Times today, have put together a good primer on why the Bushoviks want Telco Amnesty in their Spying on America bill currently being facilitated by Harry Reid in the Senate. All of you who thought they wouldn't listen in on your pizza order, you are wrong.
In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them.
Unless you have terrists in your neighborhood, that means you. And while Qwest may have had second thoughts, AT&T and Verizon thought it was a splendid idea.
It claims that in February 2001, just days before agency officials met with Qwest officials, the N.S.A. met with AT&T officials to discuss replicating a network center in Bedminster, N.J., to give the agency access to all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through it.

The same lawsuit accuses Verizon of setting up a dedicated fiber optic line from New Jersey to Quantico, Va., home to a large military base, allowing government officials to gain access to all communications flowing through the carrier’s operations center.
Back in the early days of this blog I was puzzled about why, for the better part of a year, my network connection point was in Virginia instead of locally. I had suspected that I was being "Hoovered" and now I know I was. And if you can explain how that was necessary for National Security, you have been drinking way too much Kool-Aid. And the rest of us have another good reason to eliminate the Republican Party in the next election.

// posted by montag @ 9:39 PM
Comments:
according to NSA regs the NSA cannot snoop on US citizens. I guess Bush and Co. do not worry about laws.
# posted by Blogger Ole Blue The Heretic : 12:28 PM
 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]