Russ Tice, Bush-Era Whistleblower, Claims NSA Ordered Wiretap Of Barack Obama In 2004 

From the Huffington Post:

Speaking on "The Boiling Frogs Show," Tice claimed the intelligence community had ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats.

"Here's the big one ... this was in summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator for Illinois," he said. "You wouldn't happen to know where that guy lives right now would you? It's a big white house in Washington, D.C. That's who they went after, and that's the president of the United States now."

More here.

The point is that, once you invest an agency with such power, it's going to use it, whether it's legal or not.  The NSA is currently insisting to representatives in the House that they don't actually listen to phone calls, but FBI Director Mueller flatly rejects that, claiming that his agency has already gotten access to recorded conversations handed over by the NSA.  And, for that matter, NSA Director Alexander isn't even doing that good of a job lying about it.  It was pretty bad when the Patriot Act ostensibly authorized all this Orwellian shit, but that was years ago, and the surveillance state has had plenty of time to stretch out and do its thing.

That is, it all appears to be institutionally entrenched now, and both growing and deepening its roots as each day goes by.  There's just not enough outrage, not in Washington, not on Main Street, to shut this all down.  It's only going to get worse.  Will there come a time when I have to think twice about what I say on the internet?  If so, by then it will be too late to do anything about it.

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