this isnt about spying on ordinary american citizens. the nsa isnt going to waste their time listening to my phone calls to my mom and dad. their not trying to listen in on convos from uncle joe in iowa to grandma in illinois. what they are doing is listening to calls being made intertnationaly to and from people that have suspected ties to terrorist. they should get a warrent for this, but that could take days ,weeks, or even months. by that time it could be too late. innocent people could be dead.
the nsa doing these "illegal" listenings on people that want to kill innocent people that have suspected terrorist ties has done some good. for example because of the nsa program, Iyman Faris , a convicted al Qaeda operative who admits to having ties too al Qaeda and meeting Usama bin Laden, and admits to trying to blow up bridges in new york, trying to blow up trains, was uncovered due to this nsa program. who knows how many countless of lives have been saved because of this. if the nsa had not done what they did and went the legal way of getting a warrent from a judge that could have taken days, weeks, or months, it could have been too late. people could be dead.
plus, this judge, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to issue a warrents for this. had they not done these illegal listenings on Faris, who knows what could have happend. he may have been able to go on about his plans. then that judge would have to go to sleep every night knowing that she did not stop innocent people from being killed.
the new york times broke this story. what i dont understand is why did they take a year to break this story? i question the timing of this story. the times is known for being a bush adminstration hating news paper. not to mention a paper that has a bad reputation for making up their own news (i'm not saying they did that in this case)
why did the times wait the day after the elections in iraq to break this story? they already waited a year to drop this , they couldnt have done it a week earlier? a week later? month before? month after?
i am not worried at all about this. i am not doing anything illegal that would make the govt listen to my phone calls. i think they have better things to do with their time then listen to my boring phone calls with mommy and daddy.