LAT: U.S. Spying Is Much Wider, Some Suspect (snaring Aunt Molly)

December 25, 2005 latimes.com

THE NATION
U.S. Spying Is Much Wider, Some Suspect
By Josh Meyer and Joseph Menn, Times Staff Writers

snip...

But some officials and other experts believe the top-secret program may be doing more than that.

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"Say Aunt Molly in Oklahoma calls her niece at an Army base in Germany and says, 'Isn't it horrible about those terrorists and Sept. 11?' " Tice said: That conversation would not only be captured by NSA satellites listening in on Germany — which is legal — but flagged and listened to by NSA analysts and possibly transcribed for further investigation.

"All you would have to do is move the vacuum cleaner a little to the left and begin sucking up the other end of that conversation," Tice said. "You move it a little more and you could be picking up everything people are saying from California to New York."

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Privacy Issues

Some administration critics in Congress have begun speculating that the administration is specifically directing the NSA to conduct such surveillance on people in the U.S.

Top-ranking senators from both parties are preparing questions for administration officials at upcoming hearings on the controversy. Some questions aim to pin down the administration on the issue of wholesale versus individual surveillance, according to congressional staffers.

"Based on how much their story keeps changing, I think there's more to the story," said Susan McCue, chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "A lot of people on Capitol Hill think that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-spy25dec25,1,4503763.story?coll=la-commun-los_angeles_metro&track=mostemailedlink

you betcha they're listening to the American public. These neocons cut their political teeth during the Nixxon administration and they have an axe to grind with the left and Democrats. They felt the country was endangered when Nixxon was overthrown. (Gee, the attacks against this country on American soil have devastated this country in the last 30 years :sarcasm:.) Now, they want to know where the resistance is to their war. They want to know who the trouble makers are. We here at DU have taken it for granted that our posts are scrutinized. Frankly, I'm not surprised at all to find out the surveillance is extended to land lines.

The DoD has been visiting my computer on a daily basis for quite awhile now. And, I'm just a middle-aged stay at home Mom who happens to be Quaker.

Bush Presses Editors on Security

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 26, 2005; Page C01

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500665.html?nav=rss_politics


According to Bush (Emperor of Nonsense Land), civil liberties, the media and pretty much this whole American democracy is getting in the way of his spying operation.