For 2 years now I am living in the US and I am surprised that nobody seems to know that NSA continuously records the majority of all voice- , fax and e-mail communications and filters them with key words (the same way that Google works on the Internet). Analysts only have to type “terrorist”
or “impeach Bush” to pull communications of people using those words.
The SYSTEM, based at Fort Meade in Maryland, was built after World War II to intercept private and commercial communications – not military – to glean vital information in the Cold War at that time, nowadays on terrorism. ISDN and DSL for example have built in tapping devices based on the international CCITT protocol and mobile phones are mini-tracking devices, giving their owners whereabouts at any time.
In Europe it was already a big scandal because the SYSTEM didn’t violate just the privacy of Americans, but also (for decades) the privacy of Europeans. In the US it will probably become an even bigger scandal because of the worse damage control by the Bush Administration.
Erik Van Loon, New York