[af_vet_rr]

I didn't mean to ignore your post, I'm just stating that I don't like the idea of a government agency having that kind of access to civilian communications, because I think it will be eventually abused, and tied into systems like this. It may not happen now, but you can't tell me that the liberals won't try and push it to be used for much more than it is.

I'm completly fine if they have the proper warrants and oversight and are going after a particular target.

I'm not fine where a vacuum cleaner/fishing approach is used. We might as well setup roadblocks and have the feds search every single car that goes by, because it's the same thing - having access to the raw data/communications, rather than going to AT&T and saying "I need information on these IPs and these phone numbers, and here's the search warrant" sets off all kinds of flags.

[CutePuppy]

You're talking about a policy of federal government that should be decided on the government level through Congressional legislation or even courts if they have jurisdiction in such matter (outside of FISA or something similar).

This issue should not be played with via a bogus lawsuit against private company with public oversight that has simply been a conduit of the policy.

If these groups think that such a program shouldn't exist or should be limited in what it can do (which is a moot point now), they can advocate this to Congress just like they are invited to do on many other issues. Their lawsuit against AT&T exposes their true intentions, which are to harm an administration which committed no specific violations of the legal program.

It's like Fitzgerald proceeding with "investigation" after the WH while he knew from the start that a) no crime has been committed, and b) who was the one who "didn't commit" the "no-crime".