First, if there is a lawsuit to join, we're joining. Or should I say, we're joining!!
SBC was our local phone company until we ditched them circa 2004, D had an AT&T cellphone up until this year, and now we both have Verizon cell phones, plus our long distance provider leases their lines from AT&T (so periodically we have to fight AT&T when they bill us directly, instead of our long distance company. Total scam, but that's a whine for another day). So, where do we sign up? We're pissed at the temerity of the Telecoms. D's analogy was: if a police officer pointed someone out and said, “Kill them”, and then you did, but got caught, who is in bigger trouble? You for being manipulated to break the law by its representative, or the representative? If the NSA had bothered to follow protocol, perhaps. Not in this case apparently.
Experts question legality of phone record collection | Chicago Tribune
The furor over the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' phone records intensified Friday, with one telecommunications giant slapped with a $5 billion damage suit for allegedly violating privacy laws and the former head of another firm saying through a lawyer that his company refused to participate because he thought the program was illegal.
and secondly, whenever TIA is brought up, and the answer is “closed session, please”, you know the program still alive.
The controversies involving the NSA are sure to complicate Senate confirmation hearings on Hayden's nomination as CIA director. Hayden may find himself fielding questions about whether the administration has reconstituted a heavily criticized massive data-collection effort known as Total Information Awareness that was once run by the Defense Department. It swept up billions of pieces of consumer and personal data and analyzed them in an attempt to detect patterns possibly linked to terrorism.Following a public outcry over privacy concerns, the department said in 2003 it was dropping the program, which was an initiative of retired Navy Adm. John Poindexter, a central figure in the Reagan administration's Iran-contra scandal.
The existence of a second covert information-gathering program suggests the administration has reconstituted at least parts of the TIA program, said former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
At least parts of the TIA program have been revived at NSA, according to a Feb. 23 report in the National Journal. Earlier in February, Intelligence Committee member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Hayden if several of the TIA programs had been shifted to other intelligence agencies.
“Senator, I'd like to answer you in closed session,” Hayden replied.
Tags: civil_liberties, /litigation, /surveillance
