The WSJ has an interesting article explaining how the NSA has been increasing their spying power. One thing I found really interesting was at the start of the article:
Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.
The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people’s communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks
So what the NSA is doing was basically killed by Congress five years ago. Yeah – if they won’t let one agency do it, just have another agency pick it up. This is just another example of how Bush has no respect for the law, the Constitution or this country.
Al Qaeda won the war on terror. It’s over. They knew Americans were a bunch of over reactionary twits and would destroy this country after their attacks on 9/11. Their biggest ally was, and still is, George W. Bush. America should be ashamed to have given in to the terrorists so easily.