Former NSA intelligence analyst Russel Tice has blown the whistle on Bush’s complete, mass surveillance of US citizens. Tice’s involvement in the NSA program was to identify specific groups of interest, such as journalists, based on an analysis of their communications. When Tice realized that he had access to complete, 24/7 intercepts of every communication involving these groups, he determined that such access amounted to total surveillance of large groups of US citizens. Contrary to official claims, these groups certainly had no established terrorist connections, and were in fact “plain citizens.”

From the Interview (transcription is my own):

Tice: An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists.

Olbermann: To what purpose, I mean is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York? Is it like that?

Tice: If it was involved in the specific avenue of collection, it would be everything. Yes. It would be everything.

Tice makes it clear US journalists are one such group “in the specific avenue of collection,” and that their records have been stored in a database at the NSA. It is chilling to know that this information is now on record, to be analyzed in any manner at any time, possibly decades down the road.

RTFA: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/253290…

Despite a financial crisis for the ages, the catastrophic collapse of a Republican Party crippled by his political legacy, and the highest presidential disapproval rating in the history of American polling, outgoing commander in chief George W. Bush has not completely lost his sense of fun. When Rolling Stone caught up with him at the White House shortly after the holidays for what would turn out to be his final extended sit-down interview as president, the graying but still quite fit Texan had just finished his morning exercycle session in an eagle-emblazoned sweatsuit and was fiddling with a new toy.

“They call it a Wii, or a Mee, or something,” Bush tells me, smiling as he waves a wandlike plastic device in front of a 54-inch plasma TV in the Treaty Room, a large, brightly lit chamber on the second floor of the Executive Residence that traditionally functions as the president’s private study. The president is playing a friendly game of Major League Baseball – the Boston Red Sox against his cherished Texas Rangers – and a computer-rendered Daisuke Matsuzaka drills a hard slider right past him, down and in.

“Huh,” says the president. “Might have to choke up a little.”

Although now used as a game room, the Treaty Room still has a classic feel, with a century-old painting by Theobald Chartran depicting the signing of the peace treaty after the Spanish-American War, and a magnificent mahogany “treaty table” first used by Ulysses S. Grant. A bookshelf on the north wall displays standard-issue Americana such as Poor Richard’s Almanack, but it also contains former swimsuit model Kathy Ireland’s Powerful Inspirations: Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life (”There’s a lot of good life stuff in there, a lot of stuff about patience,” the president says) and a well-worn copy of 101 Dumb Dog Deaths (”Makes me laugh every time, especially the one about cow-tipping”).

Matsuzaka delivers again, but the president looks fastball when the pitch is a change. “Damn it!” he shouts, bouncing the Wii wand off an antique globe in the corner. “Goddamn motherfucking shit!”

Mmmmmm – that’s good satire! The treaty room has become so useless and unused that Bush converts it into a game room. Classic!

Of course, the whole article isn’t online, and I don’t have access to the rest of it, but now I’m curious enough to read it in some magazine store.