Matt Blaze blog entry about NSA warrantless wiretapping

[John Young]

Matt's concluding concern that Southwestern Bell's AT&T might 
have violated the basic privacy promise of the original AT&T by
dancing to NSA's tune, is indeed to be lamented. SW Bell has been 
cooperating with the Feds from its earliest days, thanks to the vast 
military array and contracts in its service area.

One might suspect that SW Bell's buyout of AT&T was assisted by
the spies for their own purposes to gain ready access to the
infrastructure through tried and trusted friendlies. NTT's
arrangement for the FBI to grab all its traffic at the Dallas
switch a part of the pattern. And Verizon marches in step,
it too having a central intercept office in the Dallas area,
and half-dozen more in NYC for the perdurable Euro suction.

This is not to say that all defense-fed corporations have not
been equally cooperative whether by economic inducement or
by regulatory coercion. Oh, and patriotism, kachink.

Will any of this change under Obama? Would he dare prosecute
the spies and the lawyers who waved them on? Nobody has
ever done that.

I'd count on the technicians running the systems to correct
the abuse not the legal-politicos who think the invasiveness is 
hunky-dory.