(Oct 9 2008) Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans

ABC News ^ | October 9, 2008 | BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER

[Captain Kirk]

...These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News. ....

Listening to Aid Workers NSA awarded Adrienne Kinne a NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003 at the same time she says she was listening to hundreds of private conversations between Americans, including many from the International Red Cross and Doctors without Borders.

[massgopguy]

To ensure that our systems did not interfere with the spectrum we had to meet FCC standards. The way this is done is to run through all the channels including emergency channels. This was also before cell phones but people had car phones and they’d say the darndest things. Of course it would be wrong to listen too long.

[ElectricStrawberry]

According to the definitions section of FISA, the "electronic surveillance" it applies to (concerning phone calls) is ONLY communications acquired INSIDE the United States....NO WAIVER NEEDED, NO WARRANT NEEDED....so long as they acquire the signal outside the U.S.

(f) “Electronic surveillance” means—

(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;

(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;

[usurper]

The leaks have already started.

Already started? They have been constant for the last 8 years and no one was held accountable.