NSA Spying  Extends To Contents Of U.S. Phone Calls

National Security Agency has disclosed in a secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls at any time with no warrant whatsoever. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.  AT&T and other telecommunications companies that allow the NSA to tap into their fiber links and listen to your every word receive absolute immunity from civil liability or criminal prosecution, thanks to a law that Congress enacted in 2008 and renewed in 2012. The Washington Post disclosed that the existence of a top-secret NSA program called NUCLEON, which "intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words" to a database. Top intelligence officials in the Obama administration, the Post said, "have resolutely refused to offer an estimate of the number of Americans whose calls or e-mails have thus made their way into content databases such as ­NUCLEON." Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, being able to listen to phone calls would mean the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications any time they damn well please. No court oversight  needed.      READ ARTICLE

James Bamford On NSA Secrets And Massive Growth Of The Surveillance State