Damn Those Leaks!

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

[...]

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

[...]

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

[...]

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

[...]

[T] his is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

[...]

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. [...]

  Glenn Greenwald

Send out the gestapo. Find who leaked that document, and make ‘em sorry.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two [Democratic] US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

Start your search there.

And, citizens, do not worry. If you are not calling (or being called by) any bad guys, you have nothing to fear.

July 27, 2011: In a letter to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Kathleen Turner, director of legislative affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [...] said that a joint oversight team “has not found indications of any intentional or willful attempts to violate or circumvent” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA, which was amended in 2008.

[...]

The Obama administration continued Wednesday to resist the efforts of [the] two Democratic senators to learn more about the government’s interpretation of domestic surveillance law, stating that “it is not reasonably possible” to identify the number of Americans whose communications may have been monitored under the statute.

 WaPo July 2011

I guess not!  Let's just say…”all”…That should cover it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Donkey Hotey