Can you hear me then?
Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian are quite reputable, which is why I find Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case fairly troubling :
(CNN's Erin) Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between (deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife, Katherine Russell). He quite clearly insisted that they could:
BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?
CLEMENTE: No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.
BURNETT: So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.
CLEMENTE: No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.
"All of that stuff" -- meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant -- "is being captured as we speak...."
Two Democratic Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, have been warning for years that Americans would be "stunned" to learn what the US government is doing in terms of secret surveillance.
Somewhat related: Associated Press says U.S. government seized journalists' phone records
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Associated Press on Monday said the U.S. government secretly seized telephone records of AP offices and reporters for a two-month period in 2012, describing the acts as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations.