Yet another NSA story
This time from USA Today:
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.
Three cheers to President Bush for coming out rapidly on this:
"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates," Bush said. "We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans."
From the description in the USA Today article, this appears to be a companion program - in other words, meant to be a ready resource for other efforts. For example, if the Terrorist Surveilance Program bags an Al-Qaida operative coordinating with an accomplice in the US, the NSA can use the database to rapidly pinpoint other potential operatives, and using FISA warrants, maybe identify an entire cell. This could be crucial in stopping a plot in the execution phase, and could potentially save lots of lives.
But the question everyone will be asking: "Is It Legal?" Unknown. It appears that personal data is not collected, just phone numbers. I'm sure there will be lots of analysis over the next few days. I'll also note that it's refreshing to see one of the anti-constitution crowd refrain from a knee-jerk declaration that it's illegal.
Of course, that's the exception on the left right now. Huffington Post's headline is typical of the breathless assertations coming from outer moonbattia - "Bush Admin. Spying On Tens Of Millions Of Americans...". Read the comments - it appears that most of the readers didn't even bother to read the story. Many of the posts assume that this program is for listening to calls instead of simply recording phone numbers.
Another issue for me is why we can't stop these leaks. There are whistleblower procedures for the intelligence community, and until someone actually tries them you can't convince me that they had no other choice but the newspapers. These leaks, at least so far, have been engineered to only serve a polical goal and the leakers need to be prosecuted.
More as the story develops - in the meantime, there are several good places to go for more - Michelle Malkin has a good roundup, and John over at Powerline is always worth checking. Also Allahpundit is on the case.
