And you are worried about the government tapping

Weird. Doesn't seem like that should be exactly legal.

But regardless, yeah, I do think the President breaking the law and moreover, trampling on the Constitution is a bigger deal than some private citizens snooping around where they shouldn't.

Nope, I got nothing to hide. Neither do a lot of you, judging from the nonexistent "Confessions" thread (of which I have a nonexistent printout).

Max's point is a good one. While I've got nothing to hide from a legal or national security perspective, I have lots of conversations that I don't want the world listening in on. 

A copy of what?

I'm part of a large portion of the U.S. population that would prefer gun control. Bring it on.

How does one have any bearing on the other? You're comparing apples and oranges. It's like one of my kids trying to distract me when they're caught doing something wrong by telling on her sister. I don't respond to that by saying "oh ok". Why should I in this instance?

One issue is government spying on citizens, the other is employees of telco companies stealing customer data and selling it to brokers. 

The legality of the former is in question (in both spirit and letter).  The legality of the latter is not in question. While it is legal for a telco company to sell the data, that's not who's selling it. Employees of the telcos are stealing the data and selling it, which is illegal because they have no right to it in the first place.

I think drewb8 may have a point. How many of our rights or our privacies are we willing to surrender? There's a lot of chickenhawks out there crowing about our "brave young men in Iraq fighting for our freedom". Sorry but the way I see it they are certainly young and they're certainly brave and they are obviously in Iraq fighting but that's where the truth ends. They aren't fighting for our freedom, we were already free. The only thing that can take away our freedoms and privacy is our own government, that is barring some large scale invasion upon our shores by amphibious or airborne Muslim terrorist armies. And since that is unlikely to happen then, I believe we must be patriots not partisans and always look upon the action of our government with scrutiny.

btw how does the government know when al quada is calling? Wouldn't they have to just arbitrarily intercept calls and that could mean that any one of us could be under surveillance.

So keep your guns boys and plenty of ammo. Keep yourself free.

of course there's always alien invaders from Mars.

I didn't say it was insignifcant(re 9/11). But since you brought 9/11 into this I must remind you to recall who it was flying those planes and planning those attacks and where they were from and how we have sort of lost sight of that. I agree with the policy of fighting the enemy on his turf, so I must ask then, why are we in Iraq and not Saudi Arabia. And since you feel you know me well enough to label me close minded and liberal then I'll share a few personal feelings on the things you brought up.

a. If the US really wanted to put an end to this fight then we should carry out a plan that has been sort of "out there" for a while and that is the bombing and total destruction of a very important site in Saudi Arabia.

b. Concentrate on denying personal freedom to Osama Bin Ladin.

c. Can't speak of WW1 orWW2 but now VietNam, well maybe you were there, if not, then what would you like to know.

Back to the original post, one of the issues raised in the article I read was the safety of undercover law enforcement officials and their contacts.  If a source has an agents cell number and now they can find out every number that agent calls, I could see how that could be a major problem.

Also, imagine if an ex-significant other wanted to play havoc with your life.  They could get all the numbers you call and start making calls to them.  I agree with the "live your life right and you have nothing to worry about" philosophy to a point.  But there are predators/psychos out there who take advantage of people like us and this is an unfair advantage to them.

Are there ways to defeat the cell phone company's ability to record this info and also what about the gps locator info available through some subscribers, can this be defeated? Looking to the tecno geeks here to help us out.

As long as I have kids living at home I don't have to learn much about computers and electronics. They hook me up and I show them how to play with Lincoln Logs and Green Army men.