As most of you surely know, USA TODAY broke the story yesterday that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been sifting through all of our phone records in order to see if they can establish “patterns” of terrorist activity. This post serves as a follow-up to my post last December.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews…

“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added. [Link]

The ACLU, which defends our civil liberties, was not happy:

“Both the attorney general and the president have lied to the American people about the scope and nature of the NSA’s program,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s clearly not focused on international calls and clearly not just focused on terrorists. . . . It’s like adding more hay on the haystack to find that one needle.” [Link]

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p>Oh, and by the way, did you guys know:

One government lawyer who has participated in negotiations with telecommunications providers said the Bush administration has argued that a company can turn over its entire database of customer records — and even the stored content of calls and e-mails — because customers “have consented to that” when they establish accounts. The fine print of many telephone and Internet service contracts includes catchall provisions, the lawyer said, authorizing the company to disclose such records to protect public safety or national security, or in compliance with a lawful government request. [Link]

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p>I for one defend President Bush’s data mining program wholeheartedly. A person who cares about and is entrusted to maintain the security and success of ANY institution the way George W. Bush obviously cares for the United States of America, is expected, nay…duty-bound I should say, to keep track of their “organization.” If you guys disagree with this view then you obviously don’t understand the fact that with great power comes great responsibility.

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p>My tremendous sense of responsibility is the very reason that I have been data mining and tapping the telephone calls of my fellow-bloggers here in our North Dakota headquarters for the past two years. Let me tell you a bit of what I’ve learned from this patriotic tool.

1) I became suspicious of the fact that every day between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. a cluster of calls originating from Manish’s cell phone in Mumbai reached various places in the U.S. Correlating the calls to subsequent emails I learned that he was bragging about stalking the Bollywood actresses that work out at his new gym (especially an actress with the initials B.B.).

2) Neha would place a call to Canada every night after our day-end conference. I thought she was leaking information to the Canadian blogosphere but it turned out that she was just calling her bf who thinks she is really in America to be on the MTV reality show The Real World: North Dakota. Don’t worry bf, she talks about you all the time despite the best efforts of some.

3) Every night at 1a.m. Anna would get a two-second call. This was REALLY super shady and I was quite suspicious of her. Then I realized that 1a.m. every night is when I crank call her to whisper “Kaavya sucks!” before hanging up.

4) Ennis’ pager was blowing up at all hours of the day. I thought he was surely into something he shouldn’t have been. I was wrong though. He is just swimming in women and doesn’t have time to make trouble.

5) The fact that former guest-blogger Cicatrix calls the bunker only when the bunker is empty except for me does not indicate the planning of a coup.

6) Vinod-at-large really does travel the globe because of work, as proven by his cell phone records. At first I thought he was using one of those relay devices to mask his whereabouts and that he might in fact be dating a liberal or something.

7) Sajit is not an alcoholic. Every day for two months he would call an alcohol treatment center. I suspected the worst and was getting ready to force him out of SM. It turns out that he was placing the calls on behalf of his assistant.

8) Fofatlal has racked up a huge telephone bill by contacting the Psychic Friends Network.

9) Former guest-blogger Taz is trying to foment rebellion in Ecuador.

10) I don’t ever get any calls after 2:30a.m. (calls after 2:30a.m. are officially designated as booty calls). That’s not suspicious. I was just putting it out there.

In short, as you can see, my monitoring has been both justified and necessary. I have proved that despite having some quirks all of the bloggers have been loyal to SM. If I didn’t monitor their calls or mine them for patterns then I wouldn’t have been able to prove their virtue. You might argue that I’ve just been looking out for their best interests.