ZoneFlood

BellSouth says it has no evidence it was contacted by a U.S. spy agency or gave the government access to any of its customers’ phone call records, disputing a published report that sparked a national debate on federal surveillance tactics.

The regional Bell, which offers telecommunication services in nine Southeastern states, said Monday it had conducted a “thorough review” and established that it had not given the National Security Agency customer call records….

“Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA,” the company said in a statement.  

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said the company’s investigation found “no contract with the NSA and we are confident that we have turned over no phone records.”          

In a later telephone interview, Battcher added “we cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA.”  

[Associated Press | May 16, 2006]

Writing at his blog Global Guerillas, post-modern conflict thinker John Robb writes:

To me, it’s pretty clear that the people working on this program aren’t as smart as they think they are. Some top level thinking indicates that this will quickly become a rat hole for federal funds (due to wasted effort) and a major source of infringement of personal freedom. Here’s some detail:

• It will generate oodles of false positives. Al Qaeda is now in a phase where most domestic attacks will be generated by people not currently connected to the movement (like we saw in the London bombings). This means that in many respects they will look like you and me until they act. The large volume of false positives generated will not only be hugely inefficient, it will be a major infringement on US liberties. For example, a false positive will likely get you automatically added to a no-fly list, your boss may be visited (which will cause you to lose your job), etc.
• It will be expanded to include to monitor domestic groups other than al Qaeda. As we have already seen in numerous incidents across the US, every group that opposes the war or deals with issues in the Middle East will eventually fall under surveillance. Eventually, this will begin to bump up the political process by targeting groups that are politically active in the opposition party.

The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telephone industry, should open an investigation into whether the nation’s phone companies broke the law by turning over millions of calling records to the government, an FCC commissioner says.

[Associated Press | May 16, 2006]

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly  seeking reporters’ phone records in leak investigations.

“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.

[ABC News | May 15, 2006]

CNN – “Lawsuit asks Verizon and government to end phone snooping and seeks $1,000 for each of phone company’s 50 million customers.”

The EFF has initiated a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, “accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.”

Here is John Negroponte’s response, which claims State Secrets.

Salon.com — “An intelligence expert predicts we’ll soon learn that cellphone and Internet companies also cooperated with the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on us.”

At least, that’s what one would have to conclude after reading this on TPM Muckraker:

Here’s what they’re referring to. On April 6, 2006, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the House Judiciary Committee, and in one exchange, Rep. Gerald Nadler (D-NY) tried to nail him down:

NADLER: Number two, can you assure us that there is no warrantless surveillance of calls between two Americans within the United States?

GONZALES: That is not what the president has authorized.

NADLER: Can you assure us that it’s not being done?

GONZALES: As I indicated in response to an earlier question, no technology is perfect.

NADLER: OK.

GONZALES: We do have minimization procedures in place…

NADLER: But you’re not doing that deliberately?

GONZALES: That is correct.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

[ABC News | May 15, 2006]

The majority of Americans disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed intelligence efforts directed at the general public.

The survey of 809 adults taken Friday and Saturday shows a nation that continues to wrestle with the balance between fighting terrorism and maintaining civil liberties.

By 51%-43%, those polled disapprove of the program, disclosed Thursday in USA TODAY. The National Security Agency has been collecting phone records from three of the nation’s four largest telecommunication companies since soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

[USA Today | May 14, 2006]