Of course, that’s not the way most media outlets are terming it: we get headlines like U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls, Report: NSA sought Verizon U.S. call records, and the original article, emanating from Glenn Greenwald (one of the only liberals willing to be critical of Obama) at the UK Guardian, NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily. When it was a program that was tagging international calls originating from the US or ending in the US by non-citizens without a warrant, and getting a warrant if a US citizen was involved, well, that was Bush’s fault directly
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 order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. (WT note: that link goes to a PDF of the actual warrant)
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.
This seems to apply to only the wired lines, “home phones”, rather than mobile phones, otherwise the warrant would have to mention “Verizon Wireless”, which is considered a separate company in terms of their business structure, unlike, say AT&T, although Mr. Greenwald specifically mentions mobile communications. It is possible that the warrant was served on both the wired and mobile communications branches.
Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
It applies to both international calls involving the US and purely domestic calls.
The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.
“We decline comment,” said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.
So, liberals, now your guy, your “Lightbringer”, your “he’s not Bush”, has gone way, way, way further than Bush ever did, essentially wanting all the records in detail, only leaving out what was discussed, in a broad manner, a complete fishing expedition. Kinda puts into light all the other scandals and the ever-expanding use of power and tyranny of the Obama administration.
Nice Deb: Would you believe this blockbuster story was broken in a British newspaper, The Guardian? Of course you would because the US media is too lame to break stories like this.
Legal Insurrection: Battered Obama Supporter Syndrome — The Phone Records Grabber Episode
Michelle Malkin lays out why this is different from the Bush program. Also, on Fox she just said “if Obama is declaring the War On Terrorism over, what’s the point of this program?”
Also, this was just a leak about Verizon. I think we can surmise that the other companies were certainly given the same warrant.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
The administration is admitting they are doing it too:
Teach is right that there will be liberals who will say “Bush did it too!” without realizing that Bush went after international calls to and from suspected terrorists and obtained warrants for calls made within the US.
That is vastly different than the Obama administration seeking the records of everyone in the country without cause or a good faith basis.
Will liberals see the difference? Probably not because article will say the program was begun under Bush or something like that when in fact it wasn’t.
Next step will be blaming two or three rogue Homeland Security Agents who were motivated by a video to protect the country and Obama knew nothing about it.
Big difference is that no conversations are being taped like was done under Bush. I think that is important.
The Obama administration says it is not taping calls, but given their track record, one would be skeptical.
The difference really is john that the Bush administration made specific requests for records that were not protected as the calls originated from outside the country,
Here, the Obama administration made a sweeping request for all calls made on at least one network. There is no basis for that request.
In essence, you are saying that because the police came into your neighborhood with a specific warrant to search a specific house, you are fine with the next Chief of Police ordering a search of all homes in the neighborhood without a warrant.
I know that you have selective memory john, but when the Bush administration was issuing warrants for data, you were screaming your little head off at how horrible that was. Now that Obama is doing more than the Bush administration, you are fine with that.
Just another example of your blatant hypocrisy.
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OH HELL NO!!!
The UK Mail is already busting the country over its secret courts jailing people without cause, and filing no paperwork. Now, we have courts doing the same thing here? OH HELL NO!!!
So much for the uber negotiator, eh? Pissing off everyone now (except the braindead like john). Power corrupts. He is sick with it. He won’t stop unless he is forced to.
I just can’t believe that a judge allows this. The law, we were told, was meant to cover ONLY terrorists outside the US. Does the law that was written allow ALL calls to be recorded??? Or, as I suspect, we have judges that are of the same mindset as Obama, Soros, Ayers, and CAIR.
This judge needs to be investigated and brought up on review about why he signed off on this.
How long does it take for Congress to set up an independent investigator to go after Obama, these judges, and this administration?? Why are we still playing games? Isn’t their own admission of guilt proof enough?
If the repubs don’t start moving this direction soon, there won’t be a Repub party for the 2014 elections.
It gets worse, Gumball.
The Administration said they will investigate who leaked the warrant and the existence of the program to the media presumably to prosecute them.
Fixed it for ya.