What's all the drama about Verizon giving info to the NSA?
Nobody in the media seemed to give a damn when "Warrantless Wiretapping" became an actual term under George W. Bush. That phrase itself implies illegality, but nobody tripped when Bush did it *WITHOUT* a court order.
So the NSA under Obama collects information *WITH* a FISA court order, and people are starting to go ballistic?
Can we say double standard?
(I know folks here like me were outraged when Bush & Co. did this and shake our head at Obama's continuation of the Bush policies - just in a more legal fashion.)
Here's the history:
"In October 2001, President Bush issued a secret presidential order authorizing the NSA to conduct a range of surveillance activities inside of the United States without statutory authorization or court approval, including electronic surveillance of Americans’ telephone and Internet communications. This program of surveillance continues through today and works with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies.
In 2005, after the New York Times broke the story of the surveillance program, the President publicly admitted one portion of it—warrantless surveillance of Americans believed to be communicating with people connected with terrorism suspects—Senior Bush Administration officials later confirmed that the President’s authorization went beyond the surveillance of terrorists and conceded that the program did not comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The President, invoking a theory of limitless executive power to disregard the mandates of Congress, has reauthorized this warrantless surveillance more than thirty times, including after the Department of Justice found the program to violate criminal laws. President Obama has continued the program, but has given no public legal justification for it and, in some situations, appears to be strategically denying certain portions of it. For other portions, including the collection of telecommunications records, the Obama Administration says it can neither confirm nor deny its actions.
Shortly after the initial revelations, a whistleblower named Mark Klein came forward with evidence describing the specific AT&T facilities, including one on Folsom Street in San Francisco, where the handoff of customer communications is occurring. Mr. Klein's evidence confirmed what was already indicated by numerous newspaper reports and Congressional admissions—that the NSA is intercepting and analyzing millions of ordinary Americans' communications, with the help of the country's largest phone and Internet companies. EFF has brought two lawsuits to stop this illegal surveillance. In 2012, three NSA whistleblowers came forward to confirm Mr. Klein’s evidence, as well as other information about the warrantless surveillance."
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/faq
= new reply since forum marked as read
Double standard says it all. 
Phone companies have been turning phone records over to the NSA since the 60's. And the old telegraph companies even before that. I was briefly associated with the NSA back in the day. I've been in the basement of the big black building at Fort Meade. In the early 80's there was a book published titled "The Puzzle Palace". If you can find a copy of it you may be amazed about what has been going on for decades.
On edit: Looks like the book is still available on Amazon. I remember when it first came out in the summer of 1983 I was working in the Theatre Intelligence Center for CINCPAC in Hawaii. Our Colonel was reading it in his office and we could hear him screaming all the way down the hallway. "They can't print this!" was the most frequent comment. 
