May 11th, 2006 
etdot USAToday reports:
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.
I guess Qwest is the only phone company that felt “uneasy” about handing over records without the proper warrants.
For more info, see:
The article @ USAToday
A bunch of related links @ Slashdot
Posted in
From media blogger Ron Franscell at http://underthenews.blogspot.com …
The White House says “the intelligence activities undertaken by the United States government are lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.” Don’t get me wrong: I want to be protected from terrorist attacks and I think the government should do that. But I’m also old enough to remember the Vietnam logic that “we must destroy this village to save it,” so I don’t necessarily trust these guys to be great thinkers.
What happens when our “leaky” White House is looking at Hillary’s phone records and, oops, accidentally “leaks” that every Wednesday night she’s been calling an escort service in North Tonawonda? These guys don’t seem to be above using such information for the “greater good” of re-electing Republicans to protect Americans from terrorists.
If the NSA studies my phone records for the past year, they’ll find what I found in an exhaustive analysis: 1,845 calls to my son and daughter, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”; 1,045 phone calls to Allstate Insurance Co. to complain about the service after Hurricane Rita; 516 calls to my cell phone company to ask how to operate my cell phone; 511 to old friends in Colorado, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”; 435 to tech support at America Online; 20 to the pizza parlor up the street, always on an NFL game day; and six to my parents, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”
No bookies, no hookers, no sex lines, no fun. Really, my main concern is that somebody will check my phone calls and find that my life is terribly boring and I’m not really worth protecting from terrorists.