And YOU thought your friendly Verizon telecom company was just your
harmless phone and broadband provider?

Ha!

Like AT&T and other "American" telecoms, VERIZON has been secretly
providing records of YOUR very own private phone calls to your White
House war criminal's FBI, NSA and other agencies in the name of
"national" or "homeland" security.

Or maybe you don't care?

Maybe you're one of those 100-or-so-million duped and television-
stupored "citizens" who:

1) Think anything your "president" does is okay by you.

2) Don't believe that your Nincompoop-In-Chief and his craven cabal
would do anything to curtail or diminish your privacy or
constitutionally-guaranteed "rights."

But what if, say, your federal "government" had a record of that
clandestine cell-phone-contact you had yesterday afternoon at 3:14
p.m. with your secret ... "lover"?

Then?

------------------------

"Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders"

"Firm's Letter to Lawmakers Details Government Requests"

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; A01

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.

The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or
necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in
criminal investigations.

In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered
a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate
with government requests for information on U.S. citizens.

Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas,
sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but
all the people that customer called, as well as the people those
people called. Verizon does not keep data on this "two-generation
community of interest" for customers, but the request highlights the
broad reach of the government's quest for data.

The disclosures, in a letter from Verizon to three Democrats on the
House Energy and Commerce Committee investigating the carriers'
participation in government surveillance programs, demonstrated the
willingness of telecom companies to comply with government requests
for data, even, at times, without traditional legal supporting
documents. The committee members also got letters from AT&T and Qwest
Communications International, but those letters did not provide
details on customer data given to the government. None of the three
carriers gave details on any classified government surveillance
program.

>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. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of
94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court
order, the letter said. The information was used for a range of
criminal investigations, including kidnapping and child-predator cases
and counter-terrorism investigations.

Verizon and AT&T said it was not their role to second-guess the
legitimacy of emergency government requests.
The letters were released yesterday by the lawmakers as Congress
debates whether to grant telecom carriers immunity in cases in which
they are sued for disclosing customers' phone records and other data
as part of the government's post-September 11 surveillance program,
even if they did not have court authorization. House Democrats have
said that they cannot contemplate such immunity without first
understanding the nature of the carriers' cooperation with the
government.

"The responses from these telecommunications companies highlight the
need of Congress to continue pressing the Bush administration for
answers. The water is as murky as ever on this issue, and it's past
time for the administration to come clean," said Rep. Edward J. Markey
(D-Mass.), who launched the investigation with panel Chairman John D.
Dingell (D-Mich.), and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

Congressional Democrats have been largely stymied in their efforts to
have the Bush administration disclose the scope and nature of its
surveillance and data-gathering efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. Revelations have come through press reports, advocacy groups'
Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and Justice Department inspector
general reports.

In May 2006, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had
been secretly collecting the phone-call records of tens of millions of
Americans, using data provided by major telecom firms. Qwest, it
reported, declined to participate because of fears that the program
lacked legal standing.

Last month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group in San
Francisco, obtained records through a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit showing that the FBI sought data from telecom companies about
the calling habits of suspects and their associates, the New York
Times reported. Neither Qwest nor AT&T answered the lawmakers'
question as to whether they had received such requests for
information.

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.

"The privacy concerns are exponential each generation you go away from
the suspect's number," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney with
the EFF. "This shows that further investigation by Congress and the
inspector general is critical."

[read whole story]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101501857.html