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NSA Had Domestic Call Monitoring Before 9/11?

MarkusQ writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, according to documents filed in the breach of privacy suit on behalf of Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA asked AT&T to set up its domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Could it be that they were intending to monitor domestic calls (and internet traffic) all along, and the 'Global War on Terror' was just a convenient excuse when they got caught?" From the article: "...an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee."

1 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Illegal? by Homology · · Score: 5, Informative

    > Illegal according to what law? You know that when they are attacking other countries they are not required to obey the laws in that country.

    Invading another country, when not in self-defense, is a war crime ("supreme crime"),
    by the Geneva conventions, and USA has signed those and are bound by them. War crimes
    carries the death penality in USA. As an invader you are also required to follow
    local laws, with some exceptions. Of course, the invader may make new laws, but they
    may be illegal as well. Instituting new laws in order to loot Iraq is not legal, and
    you might have noticed oil companies reluctance to invest there...

    Notice how the Bush Administration tries to avoid beeing persecuted for war crimes:

    http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID =10038