http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1966283BellSouth says it has no evidence it was contacted by a U.S. spy agency or gave the government access to any of its customers' phone call records, disputing a published report that sparked a national debate on federal surveillance tactics.
The regional Bell, which offers telecommunication services in nine Southeastern states, said Monday it had conducted a "thorough review" and established that it had not given the National Security Agency customer call records.
A report Thursday by USA Today identified BellSouth Corp., along with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., as companies that had complied with an NSA request for tens of millions of customer phone records after the 2001 terror attacks. Experts said the agency was likely seeking to detect calling patterns in the mountain of data.
"Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," the company said in a statement.
Are they lying? They might have seen the "lawsuit" (the light) when it comes to this, and they may have realized they could get away with breaking the law. Only time and further reporting will tell.