Military Snooped on Troops' Phone Sex

Intercept operators listened to calls of troops, journalists, aid workers for fun
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 10, 2008 2:42 AM CDT
Military Snooped on Troops' Phone Sex
President Bush talks to reporters after being briefed at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Md., last month.   (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The US military routinely listened in on highly personal private phone calls of Americans calling home from the Middle East, two former operators told ABC News. President Bush has insisted that only the calls of terror suspects are monitored, but the whistleblowers say operators monitored the calls of blameless military officers, journalists, and aid workers—and shared particularly juicy conversations with each other.

"Check this out—there's good phone sex or pillow talk, it's really funny," one whistleblower said he was often told by an official eavesdropper. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said it was probing the "extremely disturbing" allegations. A US intelligence official asked about the claims said all government employees should expect their phone conversations to be monitored for "information assurance." (More eavesdropping stories.)

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