"If I told you, I'd have to kill you..."

This one speaks for itself. Courtesy of last night's firedoglake:

The Bush Administration has killed the Justice Department's investigation into its illegal NSA wiretaps by refusing to grant the attorneys security clearance...

It's right in line with what they did last week - finally agreeing to Nancy Pelosi's request to draw up a list of the members of Congress who were briefed on the program, and then classifying it so she couldn't see it. It was the childish move of a petulant, power-mad emotional 8 year-old.

And in a related story, USA Today reports that a massive database has been collected by the NSA of "the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth."

The only telecommunications carrier that has refused to hand over its customers' personal records to the NSA? Qwest - at no small risk, I might add. The article states:

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office.

I'm speechless...