FCC Refuses To Investigate NSA Wiretapping

[Nbadan]

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will not pursue complaints about a spy agency's access to millions of telephone records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC's chairman said in a letter released on Tuesday.

Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, had asked communications regulators to investigate a newspaper report that AT&T Inc. , Verizon Communications and BellSouth Corp. gave access to and turned over call records to help the National Security Agency fight terrorists.

"The classified nature of the NSA's activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in the May 22 letter to Markey.

The five-member FCC oversees and regulates U.S. telecommunications. While technically independent, the commissioners are appointed by the president with no more than three from the political party controlling the White House. Martin, a Republican designated chairman last year, worked at the White House and for President George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign before joining the FCC in 2001 as a commissioner.

Section 222 of the 1934 Communications Act requires telecommunications carriers to protect the confidentiality of certain consumer call information, "except as required by law" or when the customer approves its release. Violators can be fined.

Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=governmentFilingsNews&storyID=2006-05-23T175222Z_01_N23187803_RTRIDST_0_SECURITY-TELECOMS-FCC.XML)

I am just speechless!!

:hat

[Yonivore]

Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=governmentFilingsNews&storyID=2006-05-23T175222Z_01_N23187803_RTRIDST_0_SECURITY-TELECOMS-FCC.XML)

I am just speechless!!

:hat
You need to learn the definition of the term "wiretapping." Obtaining phone records is not "wiretapping."

[Nbadan]

Oh please, you know it goes way beyond merely keeping phone records, but if you want to keep living in your own ignorance please feel free.

[Nbadan]

Maybe, since I've been concentrating on the Spurs, some of you missed this from Wired Magazine...

Kevin Fogarty - eWEEK Mon May 22, 12:36 PM ET


Wired magazine has posted the full text of the evidence former AT&T technician Mark Klein has presented to back up an accusation that AT&T helped the federal government spy on phone and Internet traffic.

The documents, here in PDF form (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/zd/tc_zd/storytext/178927/19124721/SIG=11mft7390/*http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.pdf), include descriptions of the fiber-optic splitters, routers and wiring Klein alleges that AT&T set up in "secret rooms" to monitor traffic across its WorldNet Internet Backbone.

Klein's documents describe the setup, testing and maintenance of equipment for the locked wiring closets—which were located within larger networking facilities but were accessible only to specific management-level technicians with the right security clearance.

Central to the surveillance setup in each location, Klein writes, was a packet-inspection unit called a Semantic Traffic Analyzer from Narus, whose flagship products are designed for IP security intercept and traffic classification.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), which has filed a class-action suit accusing AT&T of helping the NSA (National Security Agency) break laws against domestic spying and invasion of privacy, can't comment on the increased detail in Klein's latest revelations, said EFF spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke.

"AT&T violated the law and the privacy of its customers, in collaboration with the NSA," Jeschke said.

"AT&T was key to allowing the surveillance to go on. When the NSA came knocking, [AT&T] should have said, 'Come back with a warrant.'"

Pressure to control information related to the case is intense from both AT&T and the NSA, whose cloak of secrecy extends to the motion the government filed to dismiss the case, here in PDF form.

Click here to read more about Verizon's denial that it sent records to NSA.

"The motion to dismiss our case is also classified," Jeschke says.

"The lawyers here are going to be arguing a document they have not even read in its entirety; they're not even sure how long it is because the redacted parts aren't blacked out like other redacted documents. There are just brackets that say 'Redacted Text' inside them."

For its part, AT&T has responded to the release of Klein's documents only with carefully filtered non-denials:

"Without confirming the authenticity of the documents you reference," said the statement from AT&T spokesperson Marc Bien, "the EFF has documents that are proprietary and confidential. In the wrong hands, these materials could help hackers or others harm our communications network, or commercial competitors obtain unfair advantages. Beyond that, we can't comment on matters of national security."

"What we're trying to do," the EFF's Jeschke says, "is make sure the public knows what's going on with its information. The behavior of AT&T customers is being reported to the NSA through AT&T, and we believe there should be as much sunshine on this program as possible."

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060522/tc_zd/178927)

Shocked, I'm telling you, shocked!!

[Vashner]

You would be the first beiotch crying if GW didn't intercept calls b4 an attack.

Fuck your catch 22.... Intelligence operations are as old as war and scouting itself.

Just because you collect barbie dolls for a living does not mean other people might choose to Serve a US intelligence agency or law enforcment.

[Yonivore]

Oh please, you know it goes way beyond merely keeping phone records,
No, I don't...and, frankly, neither do you.

I have no illusions about what they were doing with the data but, having acquired the data -- in and of itself -- isn't wiretapping. Get your terms right.

Now, if by developing a data mining program that would filter through all those millions and millions of non-wiretapped, non-eavesdropped phone records, LEGALLY acquired from the phone companies, allows the NSA to find terrorist phones to wiretap and eavesdrop on, in the defense of our national security, I'm all for it.

Go NSA!