US tracks phone numbers
p2p news / p2pnet: Brian Ross and Richard Esposito are regularly featured ABC reporters and, “senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we … call in an effort to root out confidential sources,” they say in The Blotter.
” ‘It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,’ the source told us in an in-person conversation.”
Ross and Esposito go on, “Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.”
Under the Bush administration, “it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers,” says the story.
It was recently revealed that the US National Security Agency has secretly compiled the world’s largest database of phone records using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, and that the, “The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans – most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.”
“The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded,” adds The Blotter.
“A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.”
Also See:
The Blotter – Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You’re Calling, May 15, 2006
secretly compiled – US penetrates citizen homes, May 11, 2006
May 17th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
This administration has done more to blatently ignore and destroy the Constitution of the United States of America than any before it ever did. What took them 60 years to accomplish this admin has done in SIX!!!! What’s next?
May 17th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Amen to the above. It is heartbreaking to see that what this country took 200 years to accomplish it took only one man to undo. We are no longer respected throughout the world. Our American citizens are being spied upon for no apparent reason other than “national security.” He has made “family values” and “Christianity” to dirty words, yet it was he who solicited the votes of good people who believed in “patriotism” and “values.”
He has divided this country into two classes – either filthy rich or dirt poor. He has blatantly ignored the laws of the consitution and has claimed executive authority. He has gotten us into a war that was unjust and based upon lies. He is an oil man from Texas, who has taken the side of big oil. His representatives in Congress one-by-one have taken dirty money from the big oil companies to not vote for tax increases on their profits. He was handed bilions of dollars in surplus for a national budget only to turn it around and instead put this country into trillions of dollars in deficit.
There are many more atrocities going on in this country, but the p2p newsletter is not the venue. I am sad to say, but if his big corporations and he have their way respective ways, there may not be a p2p for Americans to access if this goes on much longer.
I do say a “thank you” to Jon for posting this particular story. It gave a very sad and disappointed American a chance to vent a little.