The uproar today out of Washington comes from the revelation that the NSA has been collecting phone records of every day Americans since shortly after September 11th without anyone’s public knowledge as the event has been highly classified.

ABC Channel 7 in Chicago describes the information provided with the following analogy, “That printout of your phone calls that many Chicago area consumers get each month is the same one that also goes to the government in a database that has charted hundreds of millions of calls. ”

The NSA appears to be working under a potential legal loophole. A court order would be required to allow the NSA to listen to the actual phone conversation, however a court order is not required for them to request phone records.

Reports describe Billions of phone records turned over to the government for “tens of millions” of customers in some reports and “over 200 million” customers in other reports. These are domestic phone bills of US Citizens and businesses.
ABC7Chicago.com: NSA collection of billions of phone records sparks uproar

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