I noted that CNN covered Verizon and the release of their records:
Verizon offers details on records releases
* Verizon says it received tens of thousands of emergency requests since 2005
* House panel investigating telecommunication companies’ practices
* Verizon says emergency requests it received were legal
* AT&T, Qwest also submitted information, but Verizon response most detailedFrom Kevin Bohn
CNNWASHINGTON (CNN) — Verizon Communications says it has provided federal, state and local law enforcement agencies tens of thousands of communication and business records relating to customers based on emergency requests without a court order or administrative subpoena.
In an October 12 letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, a senior Verizon official says that from 2005 through this September there were 63,700 such requests, and of those, 720 came from federal authorities.
The company refused to discuss the content of those requests outside the several examples provided in the letter.
The letter came in response to a request from the panel seeking information from telecommunication firms about the extent of their cooperation with government entities, especially concerning the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program that started weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks. MUCH MORE
I saw there was a passing reference to QWEST, however, for the most part, that important story and the implications thereof were largely ignored. Why? The issue with Verizon didn’t demonstrate the lies that Bush and Cheney have made in defending the NSA program(s), and instead of following-through and actually telling it like it is, CNN has either decided, or been told to remain silent on the issue by their owners and/or the government. (That is speculation on my part, but it’s the only answer that makes any sense.) Why is the Mainstream News media betraying the trust of the American people?
CBS did report on the issue of QWEST, much more comprehensively than did CNN:
Was Qwest Punished For Not Spying?
DENVER, Oct. 12, 2007(CBS/AP) Former Qwest Chief Executive Joe Nacchio planned to argue during his insider trading trial that Qwest lost government contracts as a result of refusing a government request, court documents show.
Details of the government’s request were redacted in the documents released Wednesday. But last year, Nacchio’s attorney Herbert Stern said the government asked for access to Qwest customers’ phone records in 2001, with neither a warrant nor approval from a special court established to handle surveillance matters.
While AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. complied, Qwest refused after deciding the request violated privacy law, Stern has said.
In July 2001, the National Security Agency named other companies as recipients of a contract that Nacchio believed Qwest would get, the court documents said.
Nacchio was convicted last spring on 19 counts of insider trading. He was accused of selling $52 million in stock in 2001 based on nonpublic information that Qwest Communications International Inc. was having trouble meeting its financial targets. MUCH MORE
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