BellSouth says NSA report untrue

BellSouth did not provide customer calling records in bulk to the National Security Administration, and was never asked to do so, the company said Monday evening.

"As far as our review can tell, and we have gone up and down the corporate ladder from [Chairmand and CEO] Duane Ackerman on down, we never received a request from the NSA for bulk calling data," Corporate Communications spokesman Jeff Batcher said this morning. Reports that BellSouth handed over "any massive amounts of data" to a government agency "are simply not true," he added.

After the USA Today reported last week that AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon had all turned over customer calling records for review of calling patterns to detect terrorist activity, BellSouth embarked on an internal review that include independent investigators, Batcher said. That review found no evidence of a request for bulk calling record data by the NSA or any other requests from that agency for large amounts of data, he said.

"We routinely get subpoenas from law enforcement agencies including the FBI, local sheriffs and others," Batcher said. "And we process those and respond. But we can find no request from the NSA for any call pattern data."

BellSouth, like AT&T and Verizon, has come under fire for violating its customers' right to privacy by handing over calling records that show who originated a call, where the call was terminated and the duration.

“BellSouth has built a successful business because of the trust that our customers have placed with us,” Monday's statement concluded. “We will continue to take our obligations to our customers seriously.”

Verizon had earlier issued its own statement saying that press coverage of its relationship to the NSA also was inaccurate, but could not provide details due to the sensitive nature of the security issue.

“Verizon will provide customer information to a government agency only where authorized by law for appropriately-defined and focused purposes,” the company stated. “When information is provided, Verizon seeks to ensure it is properly used for that purpose and is subject to appropriate safeguards against improper use. Verizon does not, and will not, provide any government agency unfettered access to our customer records or provide information to the government under circumstances that would allow a fishing expedition.”

Verizon late Tuesday also said it was never asked by the NSA to provide calling records from any of its operating units -- wireline, wireless, directory publishing and Internet service provider."

"Contrary to the media reports, Verizon was not asked by NSA to provide, nor did Verizon provide, customer phone records from any of these businesses, or any call data from those records or call data."

AT&T’s response to the USA Today article was a terse statement affirming its commitment to protecting customer privacy, while meeting obligations to government agencies. “We prize the trust our customers place in us,” the statement said. “If and when AT&T is asked to help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions.”

AT&T was sued earlier this year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a class action lawsuit targeting what the EFF called “illegally handing over its customers' telephone and Internet records and communications to the National Security Agency.”

Yesterday, the EFF said the U.S. government has filed a motion to dismiss that lawsuit, scheduled to go before a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco on Wednesday, but has also asked that its legal brief and two affidavits from senior intelligence officials be declared classified. That would prevent them from being made public, even to EFF and AT&T officials, the EFF said in a statement.

"The government is trying to lock out any judicial inquiry into AT&T and the NSA's illegal spying operation," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "It is illegal for major telecommunications companies to simply hand over private customer information to the government. They should not be allowed to hide their illegal activity behind government assertions of 'state secrets' to prevent the judiciary from stepping in to expose and punish the illegal behavior. If the government's motion is granted, it will have undermined the freedoms our country has fought so hard to protect."

At least one member of the Federal Communications Commission weighed in on Monday. Commissioner Michael Copps said the FCC should investigate to determine if the telephone companies violated the Communications Act by handing over data.