Government Surveillance Of U.S. Domestic Communications

A while back I got wind, from someone who used to work in intelligence, that government surveillance of Americans’ private communications is far more extensive than has been reported during the ongoing debate about wiretapping.
Last night, for the first time, I heard someone on TV openly discussing this. In a revealing segment on Countdown, Keith Olbermann interviewed Russell Tice, a whistle blowing former NSA analyst. Mr. Tice refuted the standard storyline that the U.S. government only does warrantless wiretapping on communications between U.S. citizens and foreign countries. To the contrary, he asserts that the government spies on all communications, internal or external.

A transcript is here.
I interpreted Mr. Tice to say roughly the following:

• The government has the capability to monitor all forms of electronic communication (telephone, cell phone, e-mail, instant messaging).
• It filters through and archives vast amounts of these transmissions based on certain meta data characteristics (duration, use of key words, recipient, etc.).
• A separate layer of intelligence combs through the recorded communications based on whatever criteria analysts are searching for.
• A number of groups having nothing to do with terrorism, including journalists, have been spied on and had their communications archived.

Most of this stuff is way over my head and I’m not even pretending to be knowledgeable on government domestic spying. But I think it’s safe–and prudent–to assume that the government has the capability to record every electronic communication you make. So always assume that someone could be listening to what you say.
Mr. Olbermann asked Mr. Tice to come back again for a follow-up interview, possibly tonight. I look forward to hearing more about this.