At this point we've got multiple lawmakers openly saying "Oh yes, this has been a regular occurrence since 2006."
— Zandar (@ZandarVTS) June 6, 2013
Yup:
UPDATE During a press conference, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that the order the Guardian obtained is "the exact three-month renewal" of program underway for the past seven years.
And:
Chambliss: "This is nothing new. This has been going on for 7 years...every member of the U.S. Senate has been advised of this." #NSA
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) June 6, 2013
Also, via David Corn, here's USA Today reporting on this, um, seven years ago:
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.I'm not saying this should make us feel better. It says we're being surveilled now just the way we've been continuously since 2006. How free did we feel across those years? Yeah, I thought we were a tad freer as of 1/20/09 than we actually were. But I still don't know what abuses this has led to.
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....
And, well, tracking cookies don't make me feel free, especially when I get two days of sidebar ads based on a couple of recent health-related searches (for a condition I don't actually have). And my bank wants to know where I go on vacation -- y'know, just for my sake, to prevent someone is some far-flung place from using my credit and ATM cards -- and thus requests that I inform it of my travel plans.
Up to a point, modern life requires some intrusiveness. Except for a few off-the-gridders, we generally shrug off the notion that government knows where we live, knows when we move, knows about our cars, licenses us to drive, etc., etc. But, um...
Once again the 2nd is caught sleeping as the other Amendments get the dogshit beat out of them. Thanks a lot, you broken down piece of crap
— norbizness (@norbizness) June 6, 2013
Yeah -- God forbid the gummint should know anything about our guns (even though that restraint doesn't protect us from, say, mass surveillance. Presumably because the gunners are mostly right-wingers who saw mass surveillance in the previous administration and said, "Hell yeah! Git 'er done!")
Republicans will demagogue this now, but President Rubio or President Christie or President Cruz will surveill without hesitation. We think President Rand Paul wouldn't, but then we also thought President Obama wouldn't.
