Bigger plans"database of every call ever made within the nation's borders"

Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-060511nsa-editorial,0,2573338.story?coll=chi-homepagepromo440-fea

The NSA has your number
This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy

Published May 11, 2006


The National Security Agency has been amassing a vast, secret database with records of tens of millions of telephone calls made by Americans, USA Today reported on Thursday. Telephone companies started to turn over records of millions of their customers' phone calls not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The government has created the largest database ever assembled, according to an anonymous source quoted by the newspaper.

The government apparently has even bigger plans "to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders" to identify and track suspected terrorists.

Think about that. Every phone call ever made.

No, not so fast.

This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy. President Bush's assurance Thursday that the privacy of Americans was being "fiercely protected" was not at all convincing.

We need to know more about this. The government, though, didn't offer confirmation or elaboration on Thursday. Based on the newspaper's reporting, this effort appears to go far beyond any surveillance effort that would be targeted at terrorist operations.