I was certain that the Bush administration's wiretapping scheme would be used honorably and without any abuse, because that's just the kind of guy our President is.
But now my whole world-view is shattering before my eyes.
ABC News
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
...
[Former Navy linguist David Murfee] Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.
"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.
Jonathan Turley, the constitutional lawyer who was interviewed for the ABC story, has this to say on his blog:
What is most remarkable about this investigation is the total lack of supervision or limitations placed on agents. In direct contravention of what President Bush and the Administration has stated publicly, the surveillance program regularly intercepted journalists, diplomats, and U.S. citizens in calls with nothing to do with terrorism. The witnesses describe a virtual fraternity like environment as "juicy" calls were passed around for laughs "like songs on an IPod."
Of course, the Bush administration had been warning us since January 2006 that there would be a morale-boosting program at the NSA whereby eavesdroppers would be encouraged to get their jollies by listening in on the juicy stuff:
White House counsel Dan Bartlett told ABC News' "Good Morning America" that the program was vital and within the president's constitutional authority.
"It's a program to make sure that we connect the dots," Bartlett said. "It's not some sort of roving domestic spying program. It's a carefully tailored program to survey the enemy."
...
During his speech, Bush said his action was warranted.
"Federal courts have consistently ruled the president has authority under the Constitution to conduct surveillance on their enemies," he said. "Congress gave me the authority, but it didn't prescribe the tactics."
Well, maybe that wasn't supposed to be read as a warning. My bad. I think I was confused by the words "carefully tailored".
I guess I failed to realize that anybody talking about sex is an enemy. Duh.
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UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has picked up this story at Salon with a fairly extensive article.
Even without any reports of abuse, what the Bush administration did in spying on Americans without warrants was a felony, punishable with a $10,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison for each offense. We’ve heard for the last many years — from the David Broders and friends — that it would be terribly divisive, awfully unfair, upsetting and disruptive, for government officials to be held accountable for their violations of the criminal law. Will these revelations — that innocent Americans were spied upon in large numbers as part of this criminal spying program — change that view?