Illegal before it was okay to be illegal

From Slate (via Carpetbagger, via Norwegianity):

A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source, who asked not to be identified so as not to out his former company, reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a "data-mining" operation, which might eventually cull "millions" of individual calls and e-mails. […]

[O]ur source says the government was insistent, arguing that his competitors had already shown their patriotism by signing on.