- I called my phone service provider,
Verizon, Friday, to find out whether my phone records had been or were
still being provided to the National Security Agency. Of course, I knew
they were, since the report in USA Today on May 11 stated that Verizon,
AT&T and BellSouth had all turned over all their customer records to
the NSA, with only Qwest, of the major phone providers, refusing the request.
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- The first thing I discovered was that
when I called Verizon customer service, a misleadingly comforting recording
had been added, saying, "As always, privacy of your account is your
right and our duty."
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- After that effort to head me off, I
was switched to a customer service representative, who, upon learning that
I was calling not with a billing question, but to see if my records had
been given to the government, advised me that all such calls were being
handled by the phone company's "Security Department."
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- Switched to the Security Department,
I got a recorded message saying that "all representatives are busy,"
instructing me to leave my number, and promising me that I would be called
back.
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- Uh-huh.
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- It would appear that the public is truly
upset, finally, at the news that the Bush administration has authorized
massive "data mining" of phone records, once considered to be
private absent a court order and a finding of probable cause.
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- Now let me say that I know all about
these phone company "Security Departments" (a misnomer if ever
there was one!). In fact, my first ever investigative reporting scoop
was a story I broke in my own weekly paper, the Los Angeles Vanguard,
back in May 1976. That was an article exposing how the "Security Departments"
of Pacific Telephone and GTE were both routinely giving out unlisted numbers,
as well as customer credit records and other phone records, to a list of
some 200 public agencies, ranging from federal, state and local police
to the local library late books desk, all without any request for a warrant.
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- When we confronted old Ma Bell with
our story, we were given a flat denial by the PR department, and assured
that such customer records were held in confidence unless there was a
court order. However, we held a press conference on the sidewalk in front
of PacTel corporate headquarters, which was well attended by the local
media. The company panicked and invited everyone in to a hasty company
press conference on the issue. But when we and a group of LA reporters
from the city's mainstream media crowded into PacTel's press room and started
hammering the flaks with questions, it quickly became evident that the
company had been lying. They initially admitted that they would provide
such information immediately at the request of local police on a police
assertion that there was a hostage situation or some other urgent reason.
Then they were pushed back until they finally conceded that any of 200
organizations could get the information simply by calling in to the "Security
Department" and asking for it. All 200 organizations had been provided
with a direct access number to the Security Department, which had a bank
of operators specifically dedicated to providing the information forthwith.
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- I also learned, and reported in the
Vanguard, that phone company "Security Departments" are routinely
staffed by, and headed by retired federal agents from places like the Secret
Service and the FBI-people who are on a first-name basis with the spooks
in Washington. No wonder they are so accommodating, when unseemly requests
for customer data are made.
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- Given this experience, it comes as little
surprise to me, then, to learn that the successors to the old Ma Bell for
the most part have willingly agreed to pimp for the NSA in its latest mass
spying campaign.
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- Both Verizon and AT&T (now wholly
owned by SBC Communications) have company rules requiring that any government
request for customer billing information or call records be preceded by
a court order or subpoena, according to a May 12 article in the San Francisco
Chronicle. But just as back in 1976 with Pacific Telephone and GTE, both
these companies simply ignored their own rules-and federal privacy statutes
and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--when the NSA came calling.
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- I'm still waiting for my callback from
Verizon Security. Maybe they're just real busy fielding calls from irate
customers.
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- Verizon's vice president for media relations,
Jack Hoey, refused to comment or respond to questions regarding the company's
breach of its own internal rules, saying only that a prepared statement
was being made available to the media. That statement read:
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- "We do not comment on national
security matters. Questions about national security policies and practices
should be directed to the relevant government policymakers. Verizon acts
in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our
customers' privacy."
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- Not so committed, though, that they'd
require the NSA to get a warrant.
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- SBC's media department also has so far
declined to even respond to my messages asking for comment.
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- Clearly, the Bush administration decided
to implement Admiral John Poindexter's bold idea of a Total Information
Awareness program, even after Congress and the public broadly denounced
the idea when it was first exposed back in 2002. Supposedly killed back
then, the idea of monitoring everyone all the time was just too tempting
to this control-freak administration, so they just shifted the plan out
of the Pentagon and handed it to the NSA.
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- Back in 1976, the headline for our expose
was "At Pacific Telephone, Your Privacy Ain't Worth a Nickel."
Now it appears the headline should read, "In Bush's America, The
Fourth Amendment Ain't."
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- http://thiscantbehappening.net
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