Here's an update on a story about privacy and whether thousands of people around the country including Vermonters had their private phone records handed over to the National Security Agency as part of the Bush administration's warrant-less surveillance program.

Vermont and other states have sued to find out if private phone records were divulged by telecommunications companies like At&T and Verizon.

Those suits are now consolidated in a court in San Francisco, along with a federal government effort to prevent groups like Vermont's public service board and department of public service from finding out whether the information was handed over without public knowledge.

Dick Saudek is an Attorney who's also working as a volunteer lawyer for the Vermont chapter of the ACLU in this case.

He spoke with VPR's Mitch Wertlieb and says a recent interview given by the country's national intelligence director Mike McConnell in the El Paso Times newspaper, reveals an extraordinary admission: