YEAH, THIS IS PRETTY DAMN CLOSE TO ORWELL, KAFKA & CATCH-22

Partway through the WaPo's article on NSA/FBI data collection, I came across this gem:

[Sen. Ron] Wyden repeatedly asked the NSA to estimate the number of Americans whose communications had been incidentally collected, and the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, insisted there was no way to find out. Eventually Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III wrote Wyden a letter stating that it would violate the privacy of Americans in NSA data banks to try to estimate their number.

BUT AMERICANS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE IN AN NSA DATABASE!!!