Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers

The Senate Intelligence Committee is examining allegations by two former U.S. military linguists that the super-secret National Security Agency routinely eavesdropped on the private telephone calls of American military officers, journalists and aid workers.

NSA interceptors purportedly shared some intercepts of highly personal conversations, including “phone sex.”

If the allegations are true, they could re-ignite a political firestorm over the administration’s post-9/11 eavesdropping operations and its efforts to collect vast quantities of data about Americans’ tax, medical and travel records; credit card purchases; e-mails and other information.

President Bush and other senior officials have repeatedly asserted that after the 9/11 attacks; the NSA only monitored the private communications of Americans who were suspected of links to al Qaida or other terrorist groups without court orders.

(Original Article)