More revelations of U.S. illegal spying

More revelations of illegal spying by US government

Over the past week, several new reports have emerged casting additional light on the vast extent of illegal spying carried out by the US government. It is becoming increasingly clear that the government has initiated a major project to collect and database the communications of US citizens and non-citizens, including opponents of the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush administration.

Risen reports that the NSA has been able to gain access to telecommunications switches, which are routing stations run by a handful of giant companies that direct large quantities of telephone calls and e-mails. “Unknown to most Americans,” Risen writes, “the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters.”

These switches contain both international communications and communications entirely within the US. Because the US controls the Internet infrastructure, much of the world’s e-mail traffic at some point passes through stations located within the United States. “With its direct access to the US telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses,” Risen writes. The program established to allow the NSA spying is a highly secretive “special access program,” with no oversight or accountability required from the NSA regarding the communications it decides to monitor and for what reason.

Read on . . . .