File this one under "just when you think you've heard it all." The Washington Post published a story this morning revealing that the National Security Agency is recording all—that is, 100 percent—of the phone calls in an unidentified country.

The recorded call database includes the phone calls of American citizens from the target country, which is not identified. The recordings are kept for 30 days so that they can be searched.

The story is accompanied by an NSA weekly briefing memo about one facet of the program, which is called Mystic, and the agency has an accompanying data-retrieval program called Retro. It also published a cover page picturing a wizard holding a cell phone, as well as an excerpt from secret Congressional budgets in fiscal year 2013, which suggest that the program will grow to encompass the telephone calls of a second country.

Putting it very tactfully, WaPo reporter Barton Gellman writes that the program "may also be seen as inconsistent with Obama’s January 17 pledge 'that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security,' regardless of nationality 'and that we take their privacy concerns into account.'"

Gellman, who wrote the article with security consultant Ashkan Soltani, also notes that the program appears to be growing:

Some of the documents provided by Snowden suggest that high-volume eavesdropping may soon be extended to other countries if it has not been already. The Retro [data retrieval] tool was built three years ago as a “unique one-off capability,” but last year’s secret intelligence budget named five more countries for which the Mystic program provides “comprehensive metadata access and content,” with a sixth expected to be in place by last October.

A senior manager for the program called it a "time machine," allowing calls to be accessed without identifying specific targets. Officials who spoke to the Post said the program is "uniquely valuable when an analyst first uncovers a new name or telephone number of interest." Mystic, the voice-interception program, was started in 2009; Retro, the program that allows searching and sifting through the data, didn't get online until 2011.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council wouldn't comment on the story. An NSA spokesperson sent an e-mail to say that reporting on intelligence techniques and tools "is highly detrimental to the national security of the United States and of our allies, and places at risk those we are sworn to protect.”