[privacy] Qwest Explains Rejection of NSA Requests

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Via The New York Times.

[snip]

The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records 
because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company's former 
chief executive said today.

In a statement released this morning, the lawyer said that the former chief executive, Joseph N. Nacchio, made the 
decision after asking whether "a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request."

Mr. Nacchio learned that no warrant had been granted and that there was a "disinclination on the part of the 
authorities to use any legal process," said the lawyer, Herbert J. Stern. As a result, the statement said, Mr. Nacchio 
concluded that "the requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."

Qwest was the only phone company to turn down requests from the security agency for phone records as part of a program 
to compile a vast database of numbers and other information on virtually all domestic calls. The program's scope was 
first described in an article published on Thursday by USA Today that led to an outpouring of demands for information 
from Congressional Republicans and Democrats. The article said that At&T, BellSouth and Verizon had agreed to provide 
the information to the security agency.

[snip]

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/washington/12cnd-phone.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

_______________________________________________
privacy mailing list
privacy () whitestar linuxbox org
http://www.whitestar.linuxbox.org/mailman/listinfo/privacy