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(see quoted material below)
You should probably buttume that anything you send out electronically has a chance of being intercepted, collected, and filed permanently by the NSA. In Charles Bamford's earlier book "The Puzzle Palace" (about the NSA), it was stated that, at that time (couple decades ago), the NSA was sampling one percent of ALL world communications and that included a secret tap into an underwater military cable in the Soviet Union. There were at least two articles in the WSJ saying that many govt agencies (eg. the CIA) really were collecting information on everyone, against the law, by the use of a loophole in the law: it is not illegal for the CIA to hire subcontractors (instead of doing it themselves) to spy on everyone and anyone. With Poindexter's TIA, they can probably figure you out even if you use penames on internet NG posts.
Reading the intelligence literature is fascinating. The first book I read was "The Invisible Government" by Rose and Wise (or Wise and Rose?) back in the early '60s. It was only a few years ago that the total budget for US intelligence was released to the public: $24 billion goes into activities decided and evaluated out of the scrutiny of our politicians and our citizens. i.e. they are answerable to no one. Several other major powers also have strong intelligence programs, too. $24 billion? Probably an underestimate.
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On Thu, 8 Jun 2005, outrider
