I didn't here any complaints out of this ass when Bill Clinton started the Echalon Program, and Carnivore which actualy listened to your phone calls and read your e-mail. We weren't even at War then. What a bafoon.
From the Land of the Free to a Nation of Suspects
By Steve Chapman
The Bush administration has managed to cross George Orwell with Sting. Every step you take, every move you make, Big Brother will be watching you.
No one is exempt from the National Security Agency (NSA) program to amass a record of every phone call ever made, with the help of major telecommunications providers. As one insider told USA Today, "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world." And have no doubt: You're in it.
President Bush insisted, "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." In fact, that's exactly what his administration is doing -- 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is no longer possible (unless you're a customer of Qwest, which has refused to cooperate) to make a telephone call without the government knowing about it and keeping a record of it. We are all suspects now.
An administration official told The New York Times the average person shouldn't worry. The records, he said, were used only to keep tabs on "known bad guys." But the government can easily get a court order to find out who a particular bad guy is talking to -- or even to listen in. To target known bad guys doesn't need a record of every call ever made.
Why should law-abiding citizens care about this surveillance? To begin with, even the best of us sometimes make calls we wouldn't want everyone to know about. Another reason is that we could be implicated in terrorism through no fault of our own. Suppose you call your friend Bob, who later calls his friend Rashid, who later calls his cousin in Kabul. The government may conclude you're consorting with associates of Al Qaeda.
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