Wiretapping Phone Sex, With The Bush Admin!

[Covenant]

Article does not state if the calls were being made on civilian phones or government phones.

If these soldiers were using government/military phones, the government has the right to listen in ( looks at DD Form 2056 attached to phone) Even says it right there in BIG RED LETTERS "This telephone is subject to monitoring at all times. Use of this Telephone constitutes consent to monitoring".

It’s a whole other can of worms if these calls were initiated via civilian phones.

I think they already have the ability to do warrentless wiretapping of overseas phone conversations anyway. For National Security! You never know, maybe these are coded phone-sex operations to secretly disguise enemy bunker-busting operations with clever sexual euphamisms. We must not only record, but make records. So that in X amount of years, they become public records. So your kids can read them. Awesome! (I doubt these would become public, I'm just making a joke).

In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure they have a policy with regards to civilian overseas communications. The fact that most people didn't realize that would apply to so many mundane calls is their own fault.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The other issue beside the legality though is the abuse of power inherent in actually listening in on these conversations. It isnt like said military provided phones are not the only game in town (most likely)... so huddling around the phone sex log is a bit of an abuse of power.

[Beowulf]

My phone has it in white letters on a red background "This telephone is subject to monitoring at all times. Yse of this telephone constitutes consent to monitoring." If it's a government phone that being used for these calls (and if they're in Iraq or A-stan, it almost certainly is), then there's no real big deal.