Phone Utilities Won’t Give Details About Eavesdropping
By ERIC LICHTBLAU - Oct 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/washington/16nsa.html?_r=2&ex=1350273600&en=4245355cd1171983&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=sloginWASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The three biggest phone carriers have refused to tell members of Congress what role, if any, they had in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program. The utilities said it would be illegal to divulge classified information.
“Given the focus of your questions,” a lawyer for AT&T wrote to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter released on Monday, “our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive relating to government surveillance activities.”
The role of the carriers will be central to the debate in Congress this week over limiting the eavesdropping. The Bush administration has pressed Congress to give the carriers immunity for their cooperation, but House Democrats are balking. ......
...........
Verizon and the other companies have acknowledged that they routinely comply with what Verizon called “lawful demands” for call records and access to phone lines. In 2006, the Verizon letter said, it received 88,000 such requests, about 34,000 from federal officials and 54,000 from state and local officials. Through September of this year, it received 24,000 federal requests and 37,000 state and local requests.
.............