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Have you ever had discussions with people who support the Bush warrantless wiretapping program and heard the “if you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” argument?  Well you might want to share this article with those people, because it proves that their trust in government not abusing its power is delusory at best.

From today’s Los Angeles Times:

U.S. intelligence analysts eavesdropped on personal calls between Americans overseas and their families back home and monitored the communications of workers with the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, according to two military linguists involved in U.S. surveillance programs.

…
 
Describing the allegations as “extremely disturbing,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the panel had launched an inquiry and requested records from the Bush administration.
 
The linguists said that recordings of intimate conversations between citizens and their loved ones were sometimes passed around, out of prurient interest, among analysts at an electronic surveillance facility at Ft. Gordon, Ga.
 
They also said they were encouraged to continue monitoring calls of aid workers and other personnel stationed in the Middle East even when it was clear the callers had no ties to terrorists or posed no threat to U.S. interests.

“There were people who called the States to talk to their families,” said Adrienne Kinne, 31, a former Arab linguist in the Army Reserve who worked at a National Security Agency facility at Ft. Gordon from 2001 to 2003.

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“I observed people writing down, word for word, very embarrassing conversations,” Faulk told The Times. “People would say, ‘Hey, check this out, you’re not going to believe what I heard.’”

You probably argued that if we give government unchecked power to invade our privacy, they will abuse it.  You were right.