Wal-Mart Eavesdropping NSA Style

A Wal-Mart employee, or should I say former employee, decided to act like the NSA and eavesdropped on people. Among them, a NY Times reporter.

(CNBC) All three employees worked for Wal-Mart's IS department, said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams. None of Wal-Mart's public relations staff were aware of the surveillance, she added.

The Wal-Mart technician used company equipment to record the phone conversations, and singled out the New York Times reporter by programming the reporter's number into the recording equipment and setting it to tape conversations automatically.

The text-monitoring, which didn't target the New York Times reporter or any other individual Wal-Mart could identify, was carried out with equipment that did not belong to the company, Williams said.

The U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI are now looking into this to see if Wal-Mart broke any laws. I think it's a matter of what laws were broken and not if laws were broken. (h/t Consumerist and Matt)