NSA phone spying passes muster

Seems that the electronic eavesdropping program by the National Security Agency has gotten rave reviews by an oversight board.

This from the Associated Press via startribune.com:

WASHINGTON -- After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans' privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government's electronic eavesdropping program.

Members say they were impressed by the protections.

The briefing for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had been delayed because President Bush was concerned — after several press leaks — about widening the circle of people who knew the exact details of the secret eavesdropping program.

The board, created by Congress but appointed by Bush, focused on other classified work since it was named in spring 2005 but it continued to press for a formal briefing by the National Security Agency.

A breakthrough was reached in recent days and the five members were briefed by senior officials during Thanksgiving week.

Board members told The Associated Press they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions and wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

"If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we'd be more reassured," said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board's lone liberal Democrat.

But how can we trust them? The NSA briefed the board and they are certainly not without an agenda.

The current administration has lied to the American people so often that when they ever get around to telling the truth we'll have to duck all the flying pigs.

Sorry, folks, we don't buy it for a minute.