The hideous excrescence that is domestic spying

glenn greenwald offers us a few glimpses of the very scarey allegations (here and here, both PDF files) pending against the federal government for illegal domesting spying and the telecom companies who aided and abetted the crimes...

And:

And:

he also shares a number of observations about the current brouhaha surrounding the documents that were released as part of the criminal prosecution of former qwest ceo joseph nacchio...

• The cooperation between the various military/intelligence branches of the Federal Government -- particularly the Pentagon and the NSA -- and the private telecommunications corporations is extraordinary and endless.

• [T]he nation's telecoms are recipients of enormous amounts of revenues by virtue of turning themselves into branches of the Federal Government.

• The top telecom officials are devoting substantial amounts of their energy to working on highly classified telecom projects with the Bush administration, including projects to develop whole new joint networks and ensure unfettered governmental access to those networks.

• The private/public distinction here has eroded almost completely. There is no governmental oversight or regulation of these companies.

• All of this takes place completely in the dark, in total secrecy, with no oversight and no checks.

• That is what is so extraordinary -- and so absolutely appalling -- about the casual advocacy on the part of our nation's "journalists" for Congressional amnesty for telecoms. The amnesty [journalists like Fred Hiatt, David Ignatius and Joe Klein] advocate would result in the complete and permanent dismissal of all of the pending lawsuits arising out of this joint telecom-government lawbreaking, which would, in turn, ensure that this lawbreaking remains concealed.

just when it seems that the excrescences of the bush administration can't possibly grow any larger or more hideous, guess what...?

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