NSA Telephone Company Contracts (Score 1)

Not sure if thsi has been mentioned yet, but from my understanding the NSA signed contracts with all the baby bells to acquire the information. Does this not make it a commercial venture of sorts - selling of costumer information by telephone companies which is prohibited (I could be wrong caught it while listening to NPR). What scares me more about this is that there seems to be so much more I dont know. Like the academic saying goes: "When you get your B.S. you think you know everything. Graduate with your master you understand you don't know that much. Finish your PhD and realize you don't know Sh!t." Every from looking at governement reserach contracts my company bids on I can tell we are headed down a scary road (a ton of them deal with human tracking and monitoring!)