Readers of my original post might also be interested in a later post at www.konnecke.com
http://www.konnecke.com/2006/05/...et-over-
it.html
Actually according to a similar poll that was taken after the NSA wiretap incident 38% of the respondants said it was perfectly ok with them that this was done. It is the Democrats and a couple of Republican politicians that are making a mountain out of a molehill even though many of them were briefed on the program some 3 years ago and didn't have much problem with in then.
As long as they aren't actually receiving the content of the phone calls it doesn't violate any law for the NSA to ask for the logs. However it might violate the TeleCo law for the Telecomms to give it up willingly.
The program is meant to track patterns of conversations and attempt to find groups of people who call each other a lot. From this narrowed universe it might be possible to extract which if any of these groups have terrorist leanings.
On paper it seems legitimate enough. Sure you'll be tapped if perhaps you have a large family, or voluntary organization, but it's worth it if we can more quickly find terrorist groups. After all, if you're not making pipe bombs, who cares if you're being listened to.
But the devils in the details. You and I don't get to choose what the criteria is for a person to be spied upon. Some abstraction that elects a ruling class (who for the most part comes from the upper economic classes) decides this. They decide what is and isn't in the interest of National Security.
The good thing is that this action seems to be unfavorable by a large enough group, that it's likely to be opposed for quite some time. But then again, over time we might just accept this, as we accept other forms of goverment spying without giving it a second thought.
Commenting by HaloScan
