ABC News interviews two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. It turns out that yes, the NSA was running surveillance on American citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism. From Brian Ross’ interview with Adrienne Kinne:

ROSS: President Bush has reassured Americans again and again:

GEORGE BUSH (video): It’s phone calls of known Al Qaeda suspects making a phone call into the United States.

KINNE: I would say that that is completely a lie — I would call it a lie — because we were definitely listening to Americans who had nothing to do with terrorism…

Glenn Greenwald calls this “the most unsurprising revelation imaginable.” With no oversight and no legal restrictions of any kind, it would be surprising if abuse of power was not taking place on a large scale within secret U.S. government surveillance programs.

Kinne said that “US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and ‘collected on’ as they called their offices or homes in the United States.” She also said co-workers “were ordered to transcribe these calls.” The intercepted calls included highly personal and intimate conversations and even phone sex.

Greenwald points out that these abuses of power were not simply conducted by low-level employees on their own initiative, but were ordered by the highest levels of the NSA. Ultimately, lack of congressional oversight is to blame.

Congressional leaders in both parties — including those whose statutory duty was to compel compliance by the intelligence agencies with the law — were absolutely complicit in allowing all of this to happen. They knew for years that the Bush administration was breaking the law in spying on Americans without warrants and remained quiet and supportive. Then, this year, Congress — led by Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman — acted to immunize the private telephone companies that broke the law by enabling this spying and to expand the President’s authority to eavesdrop on Americans without meaningful oversight.

What the Bush administration did in spying on Americans without warrants was a felony, punishable with a $10,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison for each offense.

UPDATE: Think Progress has several more quotes from President Bush lying about his illegal warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

UPDATE: Veterans who served overseas don’t think it’s funny that government operatives eavesdropped on their private phone conversations with wives and girlfriends.