Hear That Deafening Silence From AT&T And Verizon About NSA Surveillance?

from the yup,-thought-so dept

As the various details have come out about the NSA leaks, many people are focused on PRISM, but it's pretty clear that the really big revelation so far was in how the telcos -- Verizon and AT&T being the big ones -- have continued to cooperate closely with the government, more or less handing over all their data to the NSA. That had already been alleged years ago, by AT&T technician Mark Klein, but many in the public and the press had ignored that until the leaks last week revealed the FISA Court's order to Verizon, demanding all records. Declan McCullagh, over at News.com, is pointing out a key point: while the tech companies have loudly denied handing over tons of data to the feds, notice that AT&T and Verizon have remained silent.

The Internet companies have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to lift secrecy restrictions on 702 orders so they can clear their name, in part by disclosing how many records they have turned over in response to legal process. Google sent an open letter to Holder yesterday, and Facebook and Microsoft have also asked the Justice Department for permission to divulge summary statistics. Holder has not responded.
By contrast, AT&T never asked for permission to disclose NSA surveillance. Instead, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl Nichols said during a 2006 court hearing in San Francisco that a discussion of all the "facts" about NSA surveillance could only happen in a classified setting. The Bush administration asked that the case be tossed out on "state secrets" grounds.
Neither did Verizon, which has secretly turned over daily logs of all customers' phone calls to the NSA, according to a court order that the Guardian published last week. When USA Today disclosed in 2006 that NSA was vacuuming up phone logs, Verizon didn't deny it. Instead, a spokesman told the newspaper only that "we do not comment on national security matters."

Now, perhaps it's reasonable to question whether or not the statements from the internet companies are completely accurate, but they've been increasingly specific in their denials. On the flip side, the telcos haven't issued any denials at all, and, given the evidence that Klein presented seven years ago, you can see why they might not have grounds to issue a denial. The remaining silence, however, speaks volumes.