Tracking terra... my ass - follow the money.

Here are a couple of interesting points from this article.

<snip>
The government's payments to AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth for the domestic phone records came to light almost five months after the New York Times reported that the NSA was monitoring calls between people in the United States and overseas.
</snip>

So they paid money for the records ?

Hummmm why would they do that if it was "National Security" at stake ?

Well.... how about this

<snip>
The Bush administration has friendly ties to two of the phone companies that cooperated with the NSA.

James Cicconi, AT&T's senior vice president for legislative affairs, served for two years as White House deputy chief of staff for the first President Bush. William Barr, Verizon's general counsel, was attorney general under the elder Bush.
</snip>

National Security my ass... this was a way to put more $$$ into the pockets of * cronies (again!!!). :mad:

MZr7

:kick:

:hi:

Last night or early this a.m. I questioned the fact that according to USA Today "The sources said the NSA made it clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation of the telcos. I'll ask the following again:

Has anyone questioned the amount of the payment? Where the money was coming from? How it is being reflected in the telephone company's financial statements? Where does this entry go on the telcos ledgers - 'Money received from government for data mining' entry. Is this legal - paying for customer records? Is it legal for the telcos to receive payment for this data?

Seem's to me that this is taxpayer's money being used to spy on taxpayers. What I don't get is that the telephone company executives that made the decision to cooperate with the NSA are being data mined as well. Why would they agree to that? Are they just greedy and wanted the payment by NSA to make their bottom line look good?

I think this story is going to expand as a complete network of relationships, and scandals, a total, fascist reworking of previously democratic governmental structures, the same way that Jack Abramoff is tied to Rove-Bush-Cheney, and the Republican Party, and several corporations, and Duke Cunningham, Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Watergate/prostitute parties and bribes, etc.; that the Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson persecution is related to Rove-the corporate media, etc., and also related to the invasion of Iraq-Halliburton-Cheney-Rumsfeld-PNAC neocons-world oil prices, etc. This is a now completely consolidated system of Republican/corporate rich insiders, and the only activities of "government" are the things they paid for, that benefit them--endless tax cuts, endless deregulation, and cutting off of citizen access to the Courts, shifting previously guaranteed programs of the Federal Government onto half-assed "private savings" schemes that will not be met. When (if) this phone-records story will ever be unravelled, I think they will find direct links between phone-cable-internet etc., mergers that were allowed, gutting the whole anti-monopoly system of laws, and this "payback" relationship of these same corporations/donors quietly turning over all their records to the "friends" that allowed them to illegally expand and monopolize markets and regions of the world, where they never would have before. Notice that the media, made up of many of the same corporate owners, still pretends that domestic spying is legal, which it is not, and that it is not outrageous; they actually still posture that this is a "boring" or "technical" story. This scandal, and all others, will not really explode with all the fury that was appropriate to it, until people start to put together that none of this is isolated, and that it is one huge, Republican conspiracy of interlocking relationships, and interlocking crime.

to get registered! Jeezo beezo, they ask a lotta questions...

and didn't need to register. Now the link I posted is asking for registration ? :wtf:

MZr7

I could use some water now ;)

I really wanted to check on the matter of the NSA actually paying for the data. Come see why your link was helpful to me.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1168369