NSA Collecting Phone Records?

J.J. Jackson* | May 11, 2006

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans ? most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.

Now, I do consider the source when I read this and take it with a grain of salt.

However here is my take.

NSA picking information out of the air when people contact numbers suspected of being terrorists to determine terrorist activity - Constitutional.
NSA searching phone physical records of people not suspected of crimes - unConstitutional. Although if someone can make an argument otherwise I am willing to listen.

Question: Is USA Today’s portrayal of the program accurate or not? We’ll have to wait and see considering the mainstream media’s propensity for not getting the story right the first time around the block. After all this is the same group of journalists that falsely portrayed the NSA program as “domestic spying” when it really was the interception of foreign calls.

Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea

(Book)

Authors:Jeffrey T. Richelson
Manufacturer:W. W. Norton
Released:13 March, 2006

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

(Book)

Authors:Bernard Goldberg
Manufacturer:Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Released:25 February, 2001

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