Big Brother Unmasked

Might have to switch back to tin cups and twine.

From AP:

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel "to find out exactly what is going on."

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the panel, sounded incredulous about the program and railed against what he called a lack of congressional oversight. He argued that the media was doing the job of Congress.

"Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaida?" Leahy asked. "These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything ... Where does it stop?"

Denver based Qwest was asked for records but denied the government on privacy grounds. So, if you are trying to decide who to give your service to, Cingular is an AT&T company. My German T-Mobile appears to be in the clear, and I'm assuming that the US govt isn't so eager to ask a foreign based company for internal information. I guess the lesson is Buy Non American, huh?