Now comes the story that the NSA has millions on millions of records of phone calls. Let the hysteria begin. The media is trying their hardest to spin this into some Orwellian plot by W and crew to spy on everyone. That's right, the NSA needs to know how often you call aunt Tilly in Iowa to swap recipes for chicken. They are logging down and taking extensive notes on all the calls you place to compile a record against you in the chance that your pizza delivery records have some significance at your trial over a speeding ticket.
Get real people. Loosen up those knickers and take a deep breath. Unlike Al Gore, there actually is a controlling legal authority in this case. The congress is involved and are given briefs on what the program is doing and how they are getting their information. It's only now that the programs particuulars have been leaked that these same congress members are pulling a CYA move and claiming that they didn't receive enough info. It seems peculiar to me that had these congressmen thought that there was something fishy about this program that they would have already called for an investigation into the matter. They can't seem to wait to call for an investigation into even the most mundane and ridiculous, so why not something that might actually make W look bad? The simple answer is that they know that they have nothing. So instead of taking the chance of being proven a fool, they will let the media spin it out of control and rely on the myrmidons on the left to pick up the pitchforks and torches and storm the castle.
What I would like to know is where was this amount of outrage when Echelon was announced? Where was the outrage over bubba using the IRS powers to audit those who had allied against him? Where was the outrage over bubba and shrillary using the FBI to gather intel on their political enemies. Where was the outrage over Sandy "Docs in socks" Berger actually stealing and destroying classified material? The fact that classified information was leaked to journalists is also receiving no airtime in this story, and there's no outrage over this either. There is no such thing as the lawful "leaking" of classified information, much the same as there is no lawful "borrowing" money from the liquor store with the aid of a sawed-off shotgun. Disseminating classified intel to unauthorized sources is a crime, a fairly serious crime. Does the name Rosenberg ring a bell. While not on the scale of delivering secrets to the Soviets, it's still treasonous. Now the government is searching phone records (pen lists) to determine who comitted the crime and the jornalists are whizzing in their nighties. What exactly did they expect was going to happen when they got into the business of revealing classified information?