It's common knowledge that companies that provide access to the internet cooperate with law enforcement.  The telephone companies have always been closely tied to emergency responders and the police -- in times of need, people reach for telephones, and this close cooperation has allowed many rescuers to reach panicked callers.  But the cooperative relationship springing from law enforcement's surveillance needs is just as close.

In the NSA spying scandal, the administration has frequently claimed that to reveal the nature of network providers' involvement with the apparently unlawful wiretapping would reveal secrets - and therefore this relationship can't even be discussed in court.  Now the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, is admitting that "the private sector" (the network operators) did indeed help out:

Now the second part of the issue was under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities.

And McConnell also says that people will die because we've been so public about our discomfort with this illegal wiretapping program. 

It's all pretty rich.

Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently. . .