I just wanted to keep this genre open and going as Pope Guilty's diary entitled:
Truthout: Bush authorised illegal warrantless wiretaps BEFORE 9/11 has become overloaded. AND MUCH HIVE MIND INFO HAS BEEN LOOSED.
ghandi, has been good enough to reformat into several ways to access dire info This is wiretap, one could also conclude with regards to our out of control government that this is 'mindtap' as well. It falls right in line w/ Bushco's PLAN TO KEEP EVERYONE IN FEAR. Witch is also terrorism. More useful info after the bump.
A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source, who asked not to be identified so as not to out his former company, reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a "data-mining" operation, which might eventually cull "millions" of individual calls and e-mails.
Like the pressure applied to ITT a half-century ago, our source says the government was insistent, arguing that his competitors had already shown their patriotism by signing on. The NSA would not comment on the issue, saying that, "We do not discuss details of actual or alleged operational issues."
Tinker, Tailor, Miner, Spy Why the NSA's snooping is unprecedented in scale and scope.
On a personal note, this whole operation sure sounds like Able Danger to me.
Also see:
Approved Contractors for BAA-02-08: Total Information Awareness
and
Verint makes a mint from govt. spyware
and finally,
NSA granted Net location-tracking patent
Another tasty NSA tool
This one pinpoints the physical location of a computer...
The National Security Agency has obtained a patent on a method of figuring out an Internet user's geographic location.
Note: forgive the incoherence, as I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet.