Extent Of NSA's E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns In Congress

New York Times:

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[thinkfreemind]

Part 1:

So what is this article really telling us?

1. The N.S.A. are spying on your communications all the time, but swear it's only an accident which is unavoidable in the effort to keep you safe from harm from those super-scary terrorists.

2. The N.S.A. can / will / does spy on you without first obtaining a warrant.

3. Our leaders in Washington have absolutely no idea what is going on, but they didn't have any problems giving "the N.S.A. greater legal leeway to collect the private communications of Americans so long as it was done only as the incidental byproduct of investigating individuals “reasonably believed” to be overseas."

4. Those same congressional leaders are now very upset about the way their permission has been used. So upset that they hold top secret "closed-door hearings" to discuss "what the tolerable limits are for such incidental collection and whether the privacy of Americans is being adequately protected." In these meetings, Congress has to ask the N.S.A. "about how much domestic e-mail collection is acceptable." The simple answer is none, but perhaps they believe there is no such thing as a stupid question.

[Jtt]

Why cant they pull all "deleted" Bush emails from that? Then shut it down.

[SamEllison]

Nice to see the NYTimes right on top of things.

Ah, Pinch and Keller, didn't James Risen tell us this in the book?