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ACLU Seeks to Rally Against Phone Snooping    [

    FCC Chief Won't Probe NSA Call Program
    Reuters

    Tuesday 23 May 2006

    Washington - The Federal Communications Commission will not pursue complaints about a U.S. spy agency's access to millions of telephone records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC chairman said in a letter released on Tuesday.

    Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, had asked communications regulators to investigate a newspaper report that AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications and BellSouth Corp. gave access to and turned over call records to help the National Security Agency fight terrorists.

    "The classified nature of the NSA's activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, said in the May 22 letter released by Markey.

    Verizon and BellSouth denied turning over telephone call records to the NSA. BellSouth demanded USA Today retract claims in its story.

    "We can't have a situation where the FCC, charged with enforcing the law, won't even begin an investigation of apparent violations of the law because it predicts the administration will roadblock any investigations citing national security," Markey said in response.

    The five-member FCC oversees and regulates U.S. telecommunications. While technically independent, the commissioners are appointed by the president with no more than three from the political party controlling the White House.

    The 1934 Communications Act requires telecommunications carriers to protect the confidentiality of certain consumer call information, "except as required by law" or when the customer approves its release. Violators can be fined.

    Another Democrat on Tuesday said in a letter to AT&T that she understood the company may have received from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) a waiver to avoid keeping records and from liability for actions it may be taking. She did not elaborate

    "I would like more information on the Internet and phone records AT&T may have provided to the NSA and the access AT&T has provided the NSA to its telecommunications network, if any," Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said in the letter.

    On May 5, President George W. Bush delegated to the DNI the authority to waive liability for national security matters if they are done in cooperation with the head of an agency or department, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

    Spokesmen for the DNI and AT&T declined to comment.

    Bush has refused to confirm or deny the report in USA Today but said intelligence activities he authorized were legal and the government was not probing Americans' personal lives or eavesdropping on domestic calls without court approval.

    AT&T was sued by the privacy rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation for violating customer privacy by turning over telephone data to the government. The Justice Department asked that the case be dismissed, saying it could reveal military and state secrets.

    The FCC's Martin said the government's arguments in that case would prevent the FCC from conducting an investigation.

    Such a probe would require access to "highly sensitive classified information" and the "commission has no power to order the production of classified information," Martin said.

    He said the National Security Act of 1959 prevented the disclosure of the NSA's activities.

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    ACLU Seeks to Rally Against Phone Snooping
    By Larry Neumeister
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 24 May 2006

    New York - A civil rights group was launching a nationwide Don't Spy On Me campaign Wednesday to urge the public to demand that the Federal Communications Commission and state utility commissions probe whether phone companies broke laws by sharing customer records with the government's biggest spy agency.

    On its Web site Tuesday night, the American Civil Liberties Union said it was demanding action at the FCC in Washington, D.C., and in 17 states. It was to advertise the start of its program in newspapers across the country Wednesday.

    The campaign, symbolized by a telephone with an eye on it, urges members of the public to go to an ACLU Web site to add their names to complaints being filed with the FCC and with state utility commissions to show there is a large population of people upset by the sharing of their records.

    Several ACLU representatives declined to speak late Tuesday about the program because a Wednesday morning news conference was scheduled, but some information was placed on the organization's Web site.

    "Join us in our work," the ACLU site said, referring to the program. "Help defend privacy and civil liberties."

    Items posted on the Web site included a rough draft of a letter the ACLU planned to send Wednesday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

    In the letter, the ACLU said recent inconsistent statements by phone companies showed the need for an independent entity like the FCC to investigate allegations that telecommunications companies illegally cooperated with the National Security Administration to collect calling information patterns on Americans.

    On Tuesday, Martin said in a letter that the agency doesn't have the power to review classified information, according to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on a House telecommunications subcommittee.

    "The classified nature of the NSA's activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations discussed in your letter," Martin, a Republican, wrote in a letter dated Monday.

    Markey asked Martin last week to investigate reports that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth shared phone call records about tens of millions of Americans with the NSA.

    A Democratic FCC commissioner, Michael J. Copps, said last week that the agency should investigate phone companies involved in the NSA program.

    The ACLU said on its Web site in its draft letter to Martin that it was endorsing Copps' call.

    "This creation of a massive database of Americans' calling patterns seems to be in direct violation of federal law," the letter said.

    The letter reminded the FCC of its duty to protect the telephone records and calling information of the nation's telecommunications customers.

    President Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied a USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

    Bush has said the administration's anti-terror surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.

    The ACLU was planning to file actions with state utility commissions in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. Other states were expected to be added later.