The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Spy

The NY Times puzzles over the mounting "not us" denials by various phone companies claiming they did not cooperate with the NSA domestic surveilance program described by USA Today.  They conclude that it may have been long-distance records that were being sought:

U.S. Focused on Obtaining Long-Distance Phone Data, Company Officials Indicate

By MATT RICHTEL  and KEN BELSON

Government efforts to obtain data from the nation's largest phone companies for a national security database appear to have focused on long-distance carriers, not local ones, statements by company officials indicate.

The statements have come in the week since USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had collected local and long-distance phone records on tens of millions of Americans from Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The responses by the companies suggest that the agency, in an effort to find patterns that could identify terrorists, sought records from major long-distance providers like the former MCI (now part of Verizon), AT&T and Qwest, but did not ask for data on local calls.

Technical experts said long-distance calling records could yield information not only on the companies' own long-distance customers, but also on traffic that the carriers connect on behalf of others, including some calls placed on cellphones or on Internet voice connections.

 

...

In response to both the suit and the report last week in USA Today, AT&T has affirmed its vigilance about its customers' privacy but would not comment on matters of national security. Verizon said Tuesday that it had not been asked by the National Security Agency to supply phone records, nor had it done so. But it said its denial covered the businesses it operated before acquiring MCI in January. Asked whether records had been provided by MCI before or since the merger, Verizon declined to comment.

The former chief executive of Qwest — a Bell company that, like Verizon and AT&T, includes a major long-distance operation — has said that he was approached by the National Security Agency after 9/11 but rebuffed a request for records. Qwest itself would not comment. The other major Bell company, BellSouth, which said Monday that it had not been asked for records or provided them, has no significant long-distance operation outside its region.

Sprint Nextel, which operates both long-distance and cellular networks, has declined to comment on any cooperation with the security agency. Cellular companies including Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Alltel and U.S. Cellular have said they did not hand over records; Cingular Wireless declined to comment.

I am not reassured that the Times is only slightly less confused than I.

HOW TO WIN MY VOTE:  I am staring at my latest phone bill and thinking that maybe someone from the NSA could explain to me how my daughter could spend $50 on text messaging.  What we have here is a kid with a "00" prefix and a license to bill.

Comments

[kim]

Let your talking do the fingering.
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[ed]

Hmmmm.

Aren't these records available for sale to commercial purchasers? Perhaps instead of handing the records directly to the NSA a front company purchased them?

Or perhaps the NSA simply contracted out the program to a private contractor, who then contacted the companies in question and bought the records from them. This could work with the stipulation that the private contractor reveal to the NSA any significant connections to any phone numbers supplied by the NSA.

This would provide the various phone companies with plausible deniability, isolate the NSA from this actitivity and still allow the NSA access to the necessary data if there is a need.

*shrug* sounds plausible to me.

[patch]

Tom,

Buy a prepay phone for your daughter and let her handle her own phone bills.

[Pofarmer]

I am beginning to think the whole thing is more or less made up. But they wouldn't do that? Would they? Where's Mapes working, anyway?

Can't wait for the first leaks after the briefings. 3/2/1

[JJ]

If the NSA could provide contact information to *and* track lost phones for parental units, now that would be double-fantastic service to the gen public.

[ghostcat]

ed wynns.

[Sam]

As most of the billing is done through a firm in Israel, maybe the numbers were provided by them, not directly from the companies, who can in all truth then state they did not supply them. Just a guess on my part.

[KM]

If your daughter's American Idol favorite made the finals, then it was dad's money well-spent.

[ed]

Hmmmm.

Last night they said that 550,000,000 votes had been cast.

WTF?

Doesn't it cost $.50 per vote? Did someone make $250+ million just on voting in American Idol?