Has ATT or the NSA broken the BellSouth email system?

For several weeks now email being delivered to BellSouth Internet customers has had serious problems with delays. Since the ATT takeover of our old "Southern Belle", the typical ATT lack of quality has seeped into the BellSouth network with surprising speed. Emails coming into the BellSouth network either disappear into the ether or are delayed for hours or even days. DNS resolution sucks as websites sometimes won't resolve but going to the IP address works. Access speeds even on DSL is erratic. And if that weren't enough we now have the ATT Death Star logo looming over the city as something to look forward to.

So, is this just a sign of the ATT bungling idiots fouling things up? Or is this the teething stage of the NSA hooking up their latest Carnivore derivative downtown in the Telco Hotels of Marietta Street? As inept as ATT is, it's hard to not blame them but we all know what ATT has let the NSA do over the past few years. Which group of idiots is wrecking the party? The corporate idiots or government idiots?