Report: The Government Read Every Email And Text At The 2002 Olympics

A secret government program, with the help of a telecommunications company, spying on all texts and emails in and out of an entire city during the Olympics. Sounds like something England's security state would have whipped up for the London games. But no, that's reportedly what happened in our own backyard a decade ago.

The Wall Street Journal has a big piece out today on the NSA's broad surveillance measures. Buried way down, almost as an afterthought, is this:

For the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, officials say, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA arranged with Qwest Communications International Inc. to use intercept equipment for a period of less than six months around the time of the event. It monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area.

The administration would later be censured for its use of warrantless domestic wiretapping...so it continued and expanded its programs anyway.

Anyway, the government knows the shit you talked about Apolo Ohno, so watch out.

[ WSJ]