They're copying the whole Internet

A Story of Surveillance

"I flipped out," he said. "They're copying the whole Internet. There's no selection going on here. Maybe they select out later, but at the point of handoff to the government, they get everything."

If only our congress critters understood what that meant. It means that the NSA has been monitoring all internet traffic, including HTTP traffic between browsers and servers, email and instant messaging traffic. All of it.

The whole point of the retro-active immunity is not to provide cover for the telcos, it is to prevent any scrutiny into what the administration illegally authorized. This is cover for the administration. they will never be held accountable. Ever.

I cannot imagine what would possess the likes of Sen. Rockefeller to cave on this issue. I can certainly appreciate what would motivate the Republicans; they don't want to be held into account for the lack of congressional oversight for the first 6 years of the criminal enterprise that is the Bush administration.