Verizon admits it
Confirmation from Verizon of previous reporting.
The telecoms claim they already have immunity under existing law.
One of the items I'm watching in all this is the "calling circle" or community requests. (Suspect calls person A, and the government then "taps" person A to person B.)
Then there's the very real, and as yet unanswered question, of whether all these non-court ordered activities have resulted in anything useful. Is there anything to suggest that doing these requests illegally yielded more results?
Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.....
From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter. The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data.
The telecoms claim they already have immunity under existing law.
One of the items I'm watching in all this is the "calling circle" or community requests. (Suspect calls person A, and the government then "taps" person A to person B.)
Yesterday's 13-page Verizon letter indicated that the requests went further than previously known. Verizon said it had received FBI administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, requesting data that would "identify a calling circle" for subscribers' telephone numbers, including people contacted by the people contacted by the subscriber. Verizon said it does not keep such information.
Then there's the very real, and as yet unanswered question, of whether all these non-court ordered activities have resulted in anything useful. Is there anything to suggest that doing these requests illegally yielded more results?
posted by mikevotes at
7:36 AM
6 Comments:
Reading the article this morning, I couldn't help but to notice the conclusion wherein the head of AT&T says basically the scrutiny should be on the authorities who have a responsibility to act within the law.
Just following orders are we?
By
Praguetwin, at 12:21 PM
Good point. But left out of alot of this is the administration's strongarm. If they refused to cooperate, they were cut out of significant contracts.
That's their motivation.
By
mikevotes, at 1:30 PM
True, but is that a valid excuse for breaking the law?
I don't want to be too harsh on the operators. After all, it is the administration from where the malfeasance originates.
By
Praguetwin, at 5:59 PM
No, not at all.
I wasn't clear. I probably shouldn't have used "strongarm" like that.
My intended point was that they broke the law for profit, so their claims of blaming the administration are fairly weak.
Qwest walked away from the money.....
By
mikevotes, at 6:12 PM
Good point. Still the idea that the administration, who knows damn well what the law is, uses what amounts to bribery to coerce the telecoms into breaking the law seems to be being somewhat overlooked. Not by you specifically, but in general.
By
Praguetwin, at 12:17 PM
Yeah.
Maybe because that's just "the way things are done?"
To us it's shocking, but to reporters who cover government and contracts it's not?
By
mikevotes, at 1:04 PM
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