This line is not secure...

It's been a while, so let's kick it back off with something that should be near and dear to all of us, our privacy. But have no fear, our government is hear to protect and serve by stepping over such trivial hurdles like the law in order to make America a safer but scarier place to live in. In the weeks following 9/11, Dick Cheney argued that the National Security Agency should intercept domestic telephone calls and e-mails without warrants as part of its war on terrorism, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Cheney and his top legal adviser, David Addington, believed the Constitution permitted spy agencies to take such sweeping measures to defend the country, The newspaper said, citing two senior intelligence officials who spoke anonymously...

On one side was a strong-willed vice president and his longtime legal adviser, David S. Addington, who believed that the Constitution permitted spy agencies to take sweeping measures to defend the country. Later, Mr. Cheney would personally arrange tightly controlled briefings on the program for select members of Congress.

On the other side were some lawyers and officials at the largest American intelligence agency, which was battered by eavesdropping scandals in the 1970s and has since wielded its powerful technology with extreme care to avoid accusations of spying on Americans...

Mr. Cheney traced his views to his service as chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford in the 1970s, when post-Watergate changes, which included the FISA law, "served to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in a national security area."

In the meantime, looks like our phones are being monitored without a court order or due cause. Pennsylvania Republican, Senator Arlen Specter said, "we do not know whether it's constitutional or not." To date, he added, administration briefings had been inadequate and "there has been no meaningful congressional oversight on this program." He also said he wanted to know whether the big telephone companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth had been coerced to do so. USA Today quoted unidentified officials as saying that a smaller company, Qwest, had been threatened with losing future government contracts.

53% of Americans recently polled believe that the N.S.A. program "goes too far in invading people's privacy," while 41% said they viewed it as a necessary tool against terrorism. [Editor's note, 41% of Americans are fucking tools.]