A particularly interesting element of the NSA Spying story is the role of the telecommunications carriers in the actual wiretapping. Why didn't they challenge the government's request? Some may perceive this as asking alot of these companies, but given Google's response when the government requested search data, did the carriers have a duty to go to a judge to confirm the legitimacy of the wiretapping orders?
Representative John Conyers is asking these questions and I look forward to the answers. Did the companies document the requests? What kind of assurances of legality were they given? I'm hopeful hearings on this issue are in our future.