WaPo: Verizon Records to Feds Without Order
A published report in Washington says one major U.S. telecommunications company has acknowledged providing intelligence agencies with the telephone records of American citizens without court orders.
The Washington Post reports that Verizon Communications made that acknowledgment in a letter to congressional investigators last week. The newspaper says that in the letter, Verizon acknowledges providing customer information to federal authorities more than 700 times, on an emergency basis, between January 2005 and September 2007.
Two other major telecommunication companies, AT&T and Qwest, have refused to answer questions about whether they provided U.S. intelligence agencies with customer records.
Verizon’s letter, as quoted by the Post, says that during the two-year period, it provided records to federal authorities possessing a subpoena or court order 94,000 times. Verizon says the information was used in a range of criminal investigations and counter-terrorism efforts.
Lawmakers are debating an update to the law that regulates surveillance activities within the borders of the United States.
President Bush has demanded that the law include retroactive immunity from liability for telecommunications firms that participated in warrantless surveillance programs.
Opposition Democrats have said they want to know what the companies did before they consider granting immunity.
The domestic surveillance program allows for warrantless eavesdropping on international phone calls and E-mails between people in the United States and suspected terrorists overseas. Some lawmakers say the programming infringes on Americans’ privacy by not requiring court approval to monitor communications.
First of all this issue not unlike many other current events is complex. It would be simple or the easy way out to cast blame if the transactions between telecom businesses and the government involving customer records makes you crazy.
Where was all that anger each time companies like Choicepoint or government entities like the national labs or the Veteran’s Administration allowed, by neglect or inadequate security, sensitive personal or classified data to be compromised. Every time a database with personal records is hacked or some individual allows a laptop to be lost or stolen, the story dies almost in minutes.
The report from VOA indicates the WaPo piece mentions occasions with and without subpoenas and/or court orders. In two years what is more surprising is nearly 100,000 transactions. Even at one phone call per record, that’s a lot of transactions. Someone’s been busy.
This may be the type of situation where no one wins the argument and the government being charged with responsibility for national security and public safety is screwed no matter what they do. If they fail to keep the bad guys at bay they will be crucified in more ways than you can count. And the same will happen when they use methods that some find unacceptable.
There has to be some kind of compromise between what citizens expect or deserve and what is possible or practical in matters of intelligence gathering. There are no conclusions or answers here, within this blog post, just a reminder we may need to be more diligent in our appraisal of what is right and what is wrong. What we can afford to allow or disallow.
While Ben Franklin said ‘ he who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither’, this may not be a case of sacrificing freedom but measuring rights, responsibilities and the best course for achieving success as life becomes more instant and more deadly.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
October 16th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
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October 16th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
re: “While Ben Franklin said ‘ he who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither’, this may not be a case of sacrificing freedom but measuring rights, responsibilities and the best course for achieving success as life becomes more instant and more deadly.”
Or… This may be a case of sacrificing your freedom.
Are you taking that chance?
I’m not.
Yes, life does become more deadly with violent extremists on the planet, but that’s nothing new. The world has had violent extremists forever.
Do I have it correct, then, that you are no longer willing to stand up and cry, “Give me Liberty or give me Death” because you are afraid to die?
Sad.
(And does anyone know why the Americans who say they believe in heaven appear to be the Americans among us who are the most afraid to die? I’m an atheist and, for the life of me, I can’t figure that one out.)
October 17th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Rather than select quotes from the post and argue out of context, try understanding the entire piece.
Here’s a quote for ya.
There has to be some kind of compromise between what citizens expect or deserve and what is possible or practical in matters of intelligence gathering. There are no conclusions or answers here, within this blog post, just a reminder we may need to be more diligent in our appraisal of what is right and what is wrong. What we can afford to allow or disallow.
Do I need to explain that to you?
October 17th, 2007 at 1:41 am
No. Allow me to explain to you:
I did argue the whole piece, and especially your quote.
Here’s the summary:
“Are you taking that chance [with your liberties]?
I’m not.”
You are debating a “compromise” to allow Verizon to share our records with the government, whether what the government is asking for from Verizon is legal to ask for or not — for the sake of your security against violent extremists.
I’m unwilling to make that compromise. Give me Liberty or give me Death. I’m just not that afraid of dying.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
See, now I look at this totally from a different perspective because I have never treated telephone conversations as private. Hence, I don’t say anything on a telephone I don’t want overheard by anyone, government or not. I can’t even call that a leftover “force protection” thing because I was that way long before I put on a uniform. So I don’t see this as a loss of a freedom and therefore do not “fear” the US Government “spying” on me. Neither do I fear death. The islamic terrorists are a much much greater evil, along with their apologists, than the US Government is.
October 17th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Wrong, Jan:
Here’s my whole point in the simplest terms I can muster right now. There is an issue over FISA and the Verizon story is related. Verizon provided records to the gov’t with and without court orders. There is a need to gather intel. There are many opinions about what is the right AND wrong thing to do. I currently submit no conclusion but state briefly what I see as the problem and how we might do better to determine a solution. That’s it.
October 17th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Yo, DL, tanx for stoppin’ in.
Your viewpoint brings to mind the term CYA
I still find it interesting that the FISA thing has many upset but my reference to DB’s chocked full of personal data and being compromised does not draw the same outrage.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Yes, true about the DB’s. That little “problem” personally affected me when the VA had that laptop “stolen.” I quote stolen because the dumbass should never have had that data outside of a secured facility. And as someone who has worked in secure factilities for the past 8 eight years, I feel I can say that guy was an incompetent boob who should not EVER be allowed inside a gov’t facility let alone be responsible for sensitive data.