Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: New York Times

By ERIC LICHTBLAU, JAMES RISEN and SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 16, 2007

WASHINGTON — For months, the Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program. But the battle is really about something much bigger. At stake is the federal government’s extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime. The N.S.A.’s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure.

To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed.

In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them.

The federal government’s reliance on private industry has been driven by changes in technology. Two decades ago, telephone calls and other communications traveled mostly through the air, relayed along microwave towers or bounced off satellites. The N.S.A. could vacuum up phone, fax and data traffic merely by erecting its own satellite dishes. But the fiber optics revolution has sent more and more international communications by land and undersea cable, forcing the agency to seek company cooperation to get access.

After the disclosure two years ago that the N.S.A. was eavesdropping on the international communications of terrorism suspects inside the United States without warrants, more than 40 lawsuits were filed against the government and phone carriers. As a result, skittish companies and their lawyers have been demanding stricter safeguards before they provide access to the government and, in some cases, are refusing outright to cooperate, officials said....With a vote in the Senate on the issue expected as early as Monday, the Bush administration has intensified its efforts to win retroactive immunity for companies cooperating with counterterrorism operations....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/washington/16nsa.html?hp

[annabanana]

1. The Times COULD have written this earlier.

Tell me they just decided that the time to run it was AFTER Harry made the crappy intel commish legislation, complete with immunity, the bill du jour.

What a friggen coincidence

I'm afraid they've shot themselves in the foot, journalism-wise. Even if they had a genuine change of heart (I know, I know) and decided to do real, knock-down, drag-out investigative journalism... their cred is long lost.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. The Times is on life support.

[rodeodance]

2. whow. it never ends does it!!

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Somehow the headline made me want to add, "not from The Onion" --

but this being LBN, I resisted.

[razors edge]

5. These public servants

have been at this for decades. They can't stop a plot to kill 3000 people, but they sure as hell can catch something to blackmail a congressman with, or steal a corporate secret for a friend.

They were caught years ago giving warnings to drug traffickers to flee before the bust, and caught selling trade secrets, from monitoring DEA and private business calls, all without a warrant.

They don't really care what we say, there is no money in it. They just have to keep up the pretense that we are being monitored and that keeps the sheople in line, meanwhile they do business as usual.

[L. Coyote]

6. Nacchio and Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?

From Oct-15-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2051298
CIA Director Michael Hayden was in charge of the NSA when tens of millions spied on

Heading the NSA when tens of millions of Americans were admittedly spied on was Michael Hayden, the current CIA chief opposing the CIA Inspector General’s office for asking questions about criminals there too. Of course, what they actually did/do and what is currently admitted are not the same things!

My informant said they route ALL communications overseas to circumvent the law. Is the "cover story" of databasing
call info just that, the current fall-back cover story for a much larger crime, spying on everyone all the time?

==================================================
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
5/11/2006 - http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: ................

=====================

The political odor of this legal case has never been proper.
Now, it's in mainstream press and serious legal blogs.

=====================
Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?
BY Scott Horton - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001415

Last week, a career federal prosecutor friend told me, “Most of us have come to agree that there’s a real problem with political prosecutions on Bush’s watch, and that needs to be addressed, but you need to remind your readers that this is something truly exceptional and that the great mass of cases involve the normal functioning of the law enforcement system, with career professionals who are detached from political considerations.” For the record, I believe that’s true. I’m not sure how widespread the phenomenon of political prosecution is. I believe that it is no longer a question of “whether” such prosecutions have been brought—that’s now very well established. How widespread is this phenomenon? That’s an important question and the answers are unclear.

And this weekend more information has surfaced which would show the practice to be far more common that I first suspected. Last year, a Colorado lawyer told me that I should look at the insider trading litigation surrounding Qwest CEO Joseph P. Nacchio—there was strong evidence in that case of tawdry politics on the prosecution side. Of course, I knew that Nacchio was the only major telecom executive who refused to play ball with the administration on warrantless surveillance. But I did take a look at the case, and I didn’t see the evidence that was suggested.

But as of this morning, I have to admit that I misjudged the situation. It seems that the evidence was lacking because the trial judge suppressed it, not because it didn’t exist. There was a major account in yesterday’s Washington Post, and this morning in the New York Times. These accounts all stack up. Here’s Scott Shane’s summary for the Times:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, ......

================
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says
By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen - Oct 13, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485.html

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

================
NY TIMES: Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11

Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11 -
By SCOTT SHANE - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html?_r=2&ex=1350014400&en=d79ceb4f4ce279b1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, .....

================
Joe Nacchio and SOX, "some personal observations on the trial and conviction"
By J. Robert Brown, Jr., University of Denver Sturm College of Law, on Wednesday April 25, 2007 at 3:14 pm
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2007/04/25/joe-nacchio-and-sox/#more-98

I offer in this post some personal observations on the trial and conviction of Joe Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications, as well as some thoughts about the impact of SOX. The Race to the Bottom has blogged the entire trial, with students or faculty attending all of the sessions. .....

...........had Nacchio had the benefits of SOX, it is unlikely that he would have been convicted of insider trading. Instead, he now faces as much as 15 years in prison for his offenses.

=================
Sarbanes-Oxley Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act

The filings were made as Mr. Nacchio fought charges of insider trading. He was ultimately convicted ........

==================
Conyers: Tell Us More = to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell
By Paul Kiel - Oct 15, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004459.php

Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications, delivered a pair of twin bombshells (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html... ) last week, when he asserted in a court filing that the National Security Agency had approached Qwest six months before 9/11 about participating in a legally dubious program, and that after the company declined, the administration yanked hundreds of millions in government contracts.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers' (D-MI) eyebrows are firmly in the raised position. So today he wrote (http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=849 ) Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and senior Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein, who both testified (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004222.php ) before his committee last month, to inquire: "I ask that you provide the Committee with an immediate briefing on the facts behind these recent revelations, and that you then provide us with any documents concerning the nature and scope of these pre-9/11 activities and the legal basis for conducting them."

.....

==================
Ex-Qwest Chief Nacchio Says NSA Punished The Phone Company

In a court appeal, ex-Qwest executive Joseph P. Nacchio says the company was in line to get lucrative NSA work, but was rejected after Qwest raised questions about the legality of some of the agency's work.
By W. David Gardner - InformationWeek - Oct 15, 2007
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202402895

Meetings held before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks between officials of the National Security Agency and executives of Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) International are taking on new significance as Qwest's former chief executive fights a conviction and as Congress debates the NSA's surveillance methods.

Ex-Qwest executive Joseph P. Nacchio, who has been convicted of insider stock trading charges, cites the meetings to back up his argument that Qwest was in line to get lucrative NSA work but was rejected after Qwest raised questions about the legality of some NSA work. If the NSA work had been awarded, as Nacchio anticipated, it would have helped the company's finances, Qwest's stock would have held up better, and Nacchio wouldn't have been criticized so intensely for selling stock.

The meetings are cited by Nacchio in his appeal to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that attempts to reverse a jury verdict for insider trading. Nacchio's attorney, Maureen Mahoney, argued that Nacchio was unfairly handcuffed regarding the government contracts; Nacchio has complained for several months that he couldn't discuss the contracts during the trial, because they involved classified information.

However, while much of the information remains classified, some new information was revealed ..........

=================
Nacchio affects spy probe = NSA sought to use Qwest fiber optics in 1997.

Nacchio affects spy probe
His court filings point to government surveillance months before 9/11
By Andy Vuong, Denver Post, 10/20/2007
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_7230967

.....

Nacchio alleges the National Security Agency asked Qwest to participate in a program the phone company thought was illegal more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks .....

.....recently unsealed documents push that time frame back to February 2001 and indicate the NSA may have also sought to monitor customers' Internet traffic and fax transmissions. .....

..... said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group.

"The fact that these materials suggest that cooperation with the program was tied to the award of certain government contracts also contradicts their (phone companies') claims that they were simply acting in good faith to help fight the terrorists when it appears that they may have been motivated by financial concerns instead," Bankston said.

....

"This is, sooner or later, going to be the stuff of congressional hearings because a new starting point has been established for this controversy. A new starting point seven months before 9/11," said Ron Suskind, author of "The One Percent Doctrine," which reported examples of how companies worked with the government in its fight against terrorism after Sept. 11.

"The idea that deals were getting cut between the government and telecom companies in secret in the early part of 2001 creates a whole new discussion as to intent, motivation and goals of the government," Suskind said.

......

[BadgerKid]

7. Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — For months, the Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

But the battle is really about something much bigger. At stake is the federal government’s extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/washington/16nsa.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=e6aa872194ef69e8&ex=1355461200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

---

New revelations coming out:
o the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers.
o In 2001 the NSA asked Qwest's most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls.
o The NSA has wanted since Dec.2000 to have more control to monitor communications.

Edit: The drug problem has been solved, yes? :sarcasm:

[PSPS]

8. Don't forget - bush's tapping our phone calls began shortly after his inauguration, not after 9/11

[deacon]

9. k + r n/t

[LiberalFighter]

10. I saw "Wider S" and thought it was going to say "Wider Stance"

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. If they want to catch narcotic traffickers and put a dent in their trade,

all they have to do is wire tap the CIA's offices. Aren't they the ones who are our biggest importers of drugs?