US Reportedly Listened in on Intimate Phone Calls of Citizens Abroad

Terrorism

US Reportedly Listened in on Intimate Phone Calls of Citizens Abroad

Posted Oct 10, 2008, 05:31 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Two former linguists with the National Security Agency say their one-time employer improperly listened to intimate telephone conversations of members of the U.S. military, aid workers and journalists stationed overseas.

The two linguists, who worked as military intercept officers, told ABC News that some of the NSA employees monitoring the calls of U.S. citizens to family and friends in the United States sometimes shared the recordings with each other.

“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," one of the linguists, Adrienne Kinne, told ABC.

Another linguist, David Murphee Faulk, recalled how the employees sometimes reacted to the conversations that would be available on workers’ computers. “Hey, check this out," he would be told. "There's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk--pull it up, it's really funny."

An NSA spokesman said some of the allegations were unsubstantiated and others were under investigation, the Washington Post reports. The agency is permitted to eavesdrop on conversations of U.S. employees in war zones. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said he may hold hearings on the issue.

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Posted by Paul - 1 month, 3 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago

Was that wrong? Because, if it is, no one in the Gonzales-run Justice Department told the Bush Administration.

Guys in in communist countries used to listen, without restriction or oversight, to citizens’ conversations all the time. It was no big deal.

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