In his 1987 novel, Patriot Games, author Tom Clancy presents a chilling scene of what was then new satellite technology in the hands of NSA bureaucrats who were authorized to order and observe military hits real-time, from their desks in Washington, D.C. Eighteen years later, both the technology and the boldness of the federal government to use computers for spying on suspected citizens, or for overseas assassinations of suspects based solely on voice recognition technologies, has reached new heights.

MSNBC Reports:

In Yemen in November 2002, a U.S. spy satellite picked up a cell phone call from a passenger in the front seat of a car on a remote road. The phone number triggered a National Security Agency (NSA) computer in Fort Meade, Md. The man’s voice didn’t match any known terrorist.

But then another man was heard, talking from the back seat. The NSA quickly identified him as Abu Ali al-Harithi — wanted for the bombing of the USS Cole two years earlier. The CIA ordered a missile strike from an unmanned predator aircraft. Everyone in the car was killed.

“It shows how just somebody riding in the back seat of a car in a remote part of a remote desert, and somebody sitting at a desk at NSA could actually hear their voice and take action immediately,” says electronic intelligence expert James Bamford, the author of the book “The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America’s Most Secret Agency.”