Fergie's Tech Blog

Talk About Eavesdropping

Ryan Singel writes on 27B Stroke 6:

Longtime NSA chronicler James Bamford, New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau and former wiretap target Mort Halperin headlined the most popular panel thus far at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, discussing Lichtblau's recent revelation that the NSA has been warrantlessly and surreptitiously data-mining and listening in on the communications of Americans for the past four years.

While little new was revealed by the panelists, Bamford, who has written three critically acclaimed books on the ultra-secret spy agency, gave a brief history of the agency's spying on telegrams and the changes to its operations caused by revelations in the 1970s of widespread surveillance of peace activists.

Mort Halperin, who was wiretapped by AT&T for 21 months at the request of the White House in the 1970s, said the surveillance era before wiretap laws were a more casual affair.

posted by Fergie @ 5/03/2006 03:43:00 PM