Given that Verizon and AT&T deliver all of your data wholesale to the NSA without oversight, and were subsequently given immunity from civil prosecution by Obama (among others), it's interesting to see the outraged reaction to a potential intrusion into Obama's privacy.

Several Verizon Wireless employees have been suspended for accessing Obama's phone records, with Verizon issuing a string of public apologies for the intrusion. Verizon tells CNN they've alerted "the appropriate federal law enforcement authorities" concerning the brief intrusion, and will fire any employees who acted inappropriately. Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam ensures CNN that "nobody was monitoring voicemail or anything like that."

Good thing that's settled. We wouldn't want the private data of one of the nation's elite treated with anything but the utmost respect for the law. Accessing and transmitting your data, without your approval, free from judicial and Congressional oversight or legal liability -- and in potential violation of privacy and wiretap laws -- remains ok. A one-off exploration of Obama's SMS history is cause for immediate action, but documented intercept and mockery of private citizen communications is something we might look into -- sometime.

As some sprinkles on this cupcake of privacy irony, AT&T this week spearheaded the creation of a new privacy astroturf organization think tank dubbed the Future of Privacy forum. In standard AT&T lobbying fashion, the group's primary goal has absolutely nothing to do with privacy -- it's to prevent the creation of laws that would prohibit them from collecting and selling your browsing data via deep packet inspection (a la NebuAD).