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.
Read: Obama Forces Verizon To Hand Over Phone Records »
