NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

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 law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration's extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they (the Cato institute) argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows."

"We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.

Source

Here is a copy of the Court Order

What seems to be happening here is that they're collecting information that begins with US citizens, and ends with US Citizens, so the argument that they are searching these records to identify foreign terrorists is, to me, harder to swallow.

During the warrantless wiretapping "scandal" during the Bush years, Democrats were aghast at the intrusion into personal privacy and Republicans adopted a "if you're not doing anything wrong, what's the problem" attitude. It will be interesting to see if those values flip. When I mentioned parties, I meant professional politicians, not private citizens that were loyal to either party, so when I ponder if those values will have flip-flopped now, I'm still wondering about the reactions of politicians.

Secondly, it's disturbing to me that a UK paper broke this, not an American one. Where is our press? Obviously they're not doing their due diligence of being the watchdog of our leaders.

ETA: I did a samaru search and came up empty only to see another thread on this after submitting. My apologies

reply to post by BobM88


Definitely worthy of attention, but have to say this has been in top topics for a while now.
I also find the UK press has the lead on many stories we are hesitant to print or expose in the USA. They hate Monsanto and love animals. My kind of people. I check it out daily.

Report: Verizon providing all call records to U.S. under court order,



Edit: Oh, I see you know it's already posted so, don't sweat it. Been there.
My last lizard on the moon thread was already posted...awkward.

Giving a star and flag anyway - just because I am already here.

reply to post by newcovenant


THERES LIZARDS ON THE MOON YOU SAY?!?!?!

LINK PLEASE!!!!

reply to post by newcovenant


And you do see that your beloved democrats are charging to the defense of this obscenely unconstitutional practice, don't you? Right along with some republicans like Chambliss and Graham.