debug feature or a built-in backdoor module for some governmental structures,” i.e., the National Security Agency, the lead governmental structure responsible for violating en masse the constitutional rights of Americans.

Of course, it helps that “Apple has chosen AT&T, the best and most popular carrier in the US with over 62 million subscribers, to be Apple’s exclusive carrier partner for iPhone in the United States,” as the AT&T website boasts. As we know, the telecom leviathan illegally collaborated with the NSA to break the law.

“AT&T violated the law, and the rights of its customers, by allowing and assisting with the illegal wiretapping and data-mining. The government’s spying program on ordinary Americans would not be possible without AT&T collaborating in violating your privacy,” explains an Electronic Frontier Foundation FAQ. “EFF alleges that under the NSA domestic spying program, major telecommunications companies—and AT&T specifically—gave the NSA direct access to their vast databases of communications records, including information about whom their customers have phoned or emailed with in the past. EFF alleges that AT&T, in addition to allowing the NSA direct access to the phone and Internet communications passing over its network, and gave the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte ‘Daytona’ database of caller information—one of the largest databases in the world.”

“The essential hardware elements of a (Total Information Awareness)-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into ‘real world’ telecommunications offices,” Wired News reported former AT&T technician Mark Klein as writing. According to Klein and a report published by the New York Times, the NSA-AT&T “Orwellian project… is vastly bigger” than previously figured “and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties.” In the meantime, Bush has signed a number of executive orders essentially granting himself the power of a Roman Magister Populi, a dictatorial master over the commoners.

Considering all of this, it makes perfect sense for the Apple iPhone to double as an NSA iSnoop device.

“Last year, it was discovered that AT&T has been secretly spying on Americans for the government,” notes Adam Frucci for the Gizmodo blog. “Maybe it still is. Then, just recently, it announced that it planned to spy on Internet surfers yet again, looking for pirated media files, presumably to the delight of the RIAA and MPAA. If you don’t want to get spied on and want to switch ISPs, guess what? Depending on where you live, you might not have any other options. And if AT&T snoops on all data passing through its network, most US Internet users will be affected, not just AT&T customers. It runs a significant amount of the backbone infrastructure of the Internet, leaving little traffic outside its grasp.”

But never mind. Apple’s iPhone is so cool and trendy a lot of buyers and potential buyers will shrug off the fact the device is—if the Russian hackers who reverse engineered the gadget are correct—a custom-made snoop device that routes your personal data right to an NSA Cray super computer.