They did NOT listen to your phone calls. Repeat: They did NOT listen to your phone calls

[dgibby]

113. i don't know.

I'm just saying it's possible, depending on who's in charge and what their agenda is.

My experience (22 years in the military) and a brother who was invoved in black ops for most of his adult life (unbeknown to his family and friends) tells me that the government can do anything it wants to do whenever it wants to do it, without ever divulging it to anyone.

After my brother retired, and before he died, we all believed he was a National Guard Reservist and a civil servant. While that was true, what we didn't know was that he had, at sometime, early in his career, been recruited for black ops work. When he was recruited back in the early '60's, I think, ALL of us were subjected to background checks (without our knowledge). I became aware of this in early 2008, right before he died, but only because he was allowed to tell us. Of course, he wasn't allowed to say anything about what he'd done, just that he'd been undercover for years.

I had no trouble believing him because, by that time, I was retired from the Navy, so had first hand knowledge of how the military operated. In fact, to this day, I'm not allowed to talk about some of the things I was aware of when my security clearance was active, and that was pretty tame stuff.

I was young, idealistic, and very naive when I joined the Navy, believed everything the government told me, and was in awe of authority, as I was raised in an authoritarian Republican, religious family environment in the South. My dad was Chief of Police and my mother was a Justice of the Peace (magistrate).

When my generation was engaged in the peace movement in the '60's and '70's, I was all like God, Mother, and Apple Pie, my country, right or wrong, and love it or leave it. After 22 years in the military, I had gone from conservative to moderate to a very liberal secular Independent.

I base all my political opinions/beliefs on personal experience and independent news sources as much as possible, and I am definitely NOT as trusting and naive as I once was.