this is the same "reporter" (in the loosest sense of the word) that did the botched reporting on the unresolved Antrhax night mare

Recorded and transribed.

Not just listened to. Personal, intimate, private and innocent telephone conversations between American citizens. Recorded and transcribed.

Anyone who tries to spin this is beyond redemption.

You'd think everyone had forgotten about this stuff by now, yet here's Glenn Greenwald and his quaint obsession with the principles of a bygone age.

Haven't you heard that there's a financial crisis? There are lobbyists to ogle, and bailouts to get angry about, and real estate to cry over. There's Sarah Palin to talk about. There's Youtube to watch. There's a whole world of things to obsess over, and then discard, half-chewed and then forgotten.

And we're supposed to still care about some stuffy old Constitutional issue? That's so over.

If the hundreds of innocent Americans whose Constitutional rights to privacy were violated were contacted to be plaintiffs, could the Bush administration be charged with the crime? Is this underway? Finally, can the whistleblowers be rewarded, so that more come forward? It is past time that the Bushies pay for the damage they have inflicted on us for 8 years!

That's because I've been listening to your phone calls, and writing them down and saving them in the government's databases.

Welcome to the benevolent surveillance state with unchecked executive power. What could possibly go wrong?

In this post Glenn shows us illegal activities on the part of our government. We have seen it often before here at UT with his posts.

The question is: will anyone ever pay a price for these activities? The Democrats say that we should never use the power of impeachment, and they refuse to use the power of the purse to restrict agencies.

Now what?

Kinne and Faulk are true patriots. I can't imagine the amount of courage they mustered to finally speak up. I hope they are very well protected because they now have set themselves up to be targeted as traitors by the Bush administration.

There simply is no way for “Personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything having anything to do with terrorism” and "It’s phone calls of known Al Qaeda suspects making a phone call into the United States" both to be true. I know which statement I believe.

Obama has said that in his administration, he will seek punishment for laws broken. This looks like a very good place to start. It's up to us to make sure he follows through.

If someone thinks they may have been under surveillance, could they request their records under FOIA and the Privacy Act? Or, since the "War on Terrorism" continues, would the Bush administration just balk and say the records don't exist or can't be released?

"I’m disappointed I guess that perhaps the default response for some is to assume the worst. I’m trying to communicate to you that the people who are doing this, okay, go shopping in Glen Burnie and their kids play soccer in Laurel, and they know the law. They know American privacy better than the average American, and they’re dedicated to it. So I guess the message I’d ask you to take back to your communities is the same one I take back to mine. This is focused. It’s targeted. It’s very carefully done. You shouldn’t worry."

"That was the attitude of the political and media establishment for years — our Government Leaders are Good and want only what is Good for us, and need not have their powers questioned, checked, or limited. These are just the revelations of two low-level independent whistle-blowers. Just contemplate what we learn — years or decades from now — the Bush administration was doing as we collectively decided that they could seize and exercise powers, even illegally, and exercise it without limits."

These excerpts sum up the mind-think behind these surveillance initiatives. Gather enormous files on anyone so the world knows that we can and do- always buttressed because our security is the end all. We are assured that the surveillance state is always benign. It has no political motivation, would never use this massive power to undermine campaigns/elections nor threaten our very democracy.

...To argue that until someone is convicted, the allegation is only "alleged" (that's what allegation means, of course) and therefore, not worthy of investigation.

You see, when it comes to rich, white Republicans, a conviction is the the threshold for the Probable Cause needed to start an investigation that could lead to that selfsame conviction. I call it the Möbius Defense.

When it comes to the poor or non-Whites, suspicion is conviction. Can't be takin' no chances with our lives, now can we? Our liberties on the other hand... well, we're not using them anymore anyway.

...Is this why Joe Klein still has problems with you?

I'm reading this story from Europe, where despite much more vigorous government activity in social life people do not expect nor condone said government spying on them - I note in Le Monde a recent worldwide survey where only people in New York listed fear of a terrorist attack as a major concern, so evidently the USG has been successful in its "be very afraid and let us take care of you" policy.

How to get out of this hole? The same people - Rockefeller, Pelosi, Harman, Reyes - are still in power and have no election or opponent to face. I won't vote for Reyes this time (not least for his vote for Paulson's demagogic $700 billion despite 100-1 opposition from his constituents, according to Reyes himself) but he has no reason to care about that. These folks have campaign chests funded by telecoms that virtually ensure their re-election - or they have no opposition within a one-party local system. As long as the Democratic Party leadership is in bed with the telecoms and with Wall Street, the future looks fairly bleak to me. Thoughts?