Your phone number may

be in NSA's data bank

The current flap about the telephone companies turning over the numbers called from each phone to the National Security Agency concerns all of us. It has been asserted by the Bush administration that these numbers do not identify specific individuals and therefore do not violate our privacy.

To ascertain the validity of this assertion I went to Google and typed in my personal phone number. Up came information including my name and address. Try it yourself. If I (basically computer illiterate) can use widely available Google and trace that number imagine what highly trained system analysts could find out by merely knowing your phone number and the numbers you called.

I just hope that a suspected al-Qaida member doesn't use my accountant, my veterinarian, or buy from Brecks tulip Bulb Company.

GRETCHEN ALBRECHT-HELLAR

Sandpoint