Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?

This Salon News article asks the question Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?

My answer to that question is I certainly hope so.

Tom Clancy sort of predicted 9/11 at the end of Debt of Honor, when a plane crashes into Congress during a joint session of Congress, killing the President, most of the Cabinet and the Congress, the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs. Executive Orders describes what the newly appointed Vice President Jack Ryan does to help the country to recover.

Tom Clancy also has an entire series called Net Force, and I hope that we have something like Net Force in operation right now.

In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center.

In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T's facility in Bridgeton. The room's tight security includes a biometric "mantrap" or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and fingerprint scanners. The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees working inside the room were "monitoring network traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency."