It's not just you're telephone records, e-mail exchanges and Internet activity the NSA is capturing. It's also acquiring information about your credit card transactions. The Wall Street Journal says its sources tell it the NSA is
cataloging information on our credit card transactions. Earlier reports also only mentioned the gathering of telephone data on Verizon customers, but WSJ says the agency also gathers data from AT&T and Spring-Nextel, all in the name of protecting us from terrorists.
The arrangement with Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, the
country's three largest phone companies means, that every time the majority of
Americans makes a call, NSA gets a record of the location, the number called,
the time of the call and the length of the conversation, according to people
familiar with the matter. The practice, which evolved out of warrantless
wiretapping programs begun after 2001, is now approved by all three branches of
the U.S. government.
AT&T has 107.3 million wireless customers and 31.2
million landline customers. Verizon has 98.9 million wireless customers and 22.2
million landline customers while Sprint has 55 million customers in total.
NSA also obtains access to data from Internet service
providers on Internet use such as data about email or website visits, several
former officials said. NSA has established similar relationships with
credit-card companies, three former officials said.
It couldn't be determined if any of the Internet or
credit-card arrangements are ongoing, as are the phone company efforts, or
one-shot collection efforts. The credit-card firms, phone companies and NSA
declined to comment for this article.
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