ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The company has already denied it. Now, BellSouth is demanding that the newspaper that accused it of providing private phone records to the National Security Agency retract its article.
The telecommunications giant sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week's story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls.
BellSouth faxed the letter to the attention of Craig Moon, the newspaper's president and publisher, and its general counsel, said BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher. The letter calls for the paper to retract the "false and unsubstantiated statements the paper made regarding BellSouth."
USA Today has not yet responded to the letter. It said earlier this week it stands by its story, but that it would investigate the denials issued by BellSouth and Verizon.
AT&T, the third company named in the article, has not denied the story outright, but said it would not provide such information without legal authorization.
USA Today reported that the NSA doesn't record or listen to conversations. Rather, the article said, the agency uses the data -- including phone numbers, times and locations -- to look for patterns that might suggest terrorist activity.
The Bush administration has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a program.
My question to BellSouth is this: Why are you just now demanding a retraction of the USA Today story? In the original USA Today story, BellSouth--along with AT&T and Verizon--was asked to comment on their involvement in providing these private phone records to the NSA. Here is what the three telecom companies said in the original story:
AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: "We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law."
In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: "BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority."
Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy."
The simple fact here is that all three of these telecom companies have gotten caught in bed with the NSA. The three telecom companies happily provided phone records to the NSA without asking for court orders. And what is more, the NSA was willing to pay the telecom companies for these phone records. Consider this in the original USA Today story:
The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks.
The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their "call-detail records," a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.
The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.
With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest.
The telecoms never expected their involvement to be publicly revealed, nor did they expect a major backlash by American consumers. All they saw were dollar signs of government contracts to pad their profit margins--money was more important to them than American citizens' basic rights.
So what has happened to cause BellSouth to go on the attack against USA Today? The answer is money. According to this CNN.Com story, Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth have been named in a class-action lawsuit, alleging the companies participated in an illegal NSA domestic spying program:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- BellSouth and AT&T were added to a class-action lawsuit against Verizon Communications that alleges the companies illegally participated in a National Security Agency domestic surveillance program.
The complaint, filed in Manhattan District Court, is asking that the companies pay $200 billion in fines to their 200 million subscribers.
Attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran said that since the lawsuit was filed Friday they have been overwhelmed with calls from people wanting to join the suit.
"They are violating federal law, which mandates a minimum penalty of $1,000 for every person whose records have been disclosed," Afran said, adding that many who have called his office are "outraged" by the government's and phone companies' actions.
This class-action lawsuit is a threat to the telecom profits--and BellSouth knows it. That is why they are trying to attack USA Today, and to force the retraction of the story. If they can force USA Today to retract the story, then BellSouth can claim they never violated any federal or privacy laws, and force this lawsuit to be dismissed.
One final little detail to this story. Both Verizon and BellSouth have now denied that they even gave the NSA customer phone records. AT&T has refused to comment on the story.
I am amazed at the hypocrisy of these three companies.
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