C&L says people are chucking their AT&T (Cingular) and Verizon cell phones in protest over those companies willingly giving over our private information to an illegal government spying program — and if Paul Begala has any insight, in exchange for the government’s help in destroying net neutrality, something the big telecoms have an interest in.
If you’re not wild about having your personal info handed over like that, here are some other options:
Some may be locked into contracts but for others…well, maybe it’s time to take the Blackberry plunge
Qwest refused to comply with the government’s request. If you’re an AT&T, Verizon or Bell South home customer and you want to find out if you’re eligible for Qwest services (DSL, wireless, long distance, VoIP) you can do so here.
Think Progress is also reporting that AT&T, Verizon and Bell South could all be liable for $1000 for each person whose phone records they turned over. Multiply that by the tens of millions of phone records the USA Today article says were involved and the next thing you know you’re talking real money.
Update: MoveOn has a great action page about things you can do to support net neutrality.
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fitz!?
Class action lawsuits will be filed by next week at the latest. I think they finally did something that pisses everybody off, even the slow ones.
Could this be a breach of contract? I don’t want to go dig up my contract, but I guess I should. If it were we could get out of our plans without penalty.
He’s a real sniffer…
Having recently signed up my cingular Treo 650 with a contract, my transition cost out of AT&T is high. :-
Class action against the phone companies? Or class action against our NSA??
Did Sprint resist the Feds? I thought that only Qwest did. Or was Sprint not asked?
clb72 read my mind. I just re-upped for two more years with Verizon. IF it is a breach of contract, and it sure seems like it should be, then wouldn’t it be nice to stick it to them and keep the new Razor, as well? Any lawyers out there?
So just suppose, for argument sake, that I want to catch my cheating spouse so I can get a good divorce settlement and take away the kids. Since they are giving this info to the govenment, can I get it too and check my hubby’s calls for calls to his mistress? If it’s available to them it should be available to me. I’m his wife, after all. Why should I need a warrant if they don’t? If I want to see who my neighbors are calling, can I see that too? Where does this end?
I’m not certain, but Qwest sold its cellular phone service to Sprint a while back — so there won’t be a difference if traffic is sniffed en route, on Sprint’s lines…. ah:
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3779550
He said Qwest appeared overvalued considering its wireless business isn’t making a significant profit, unlike its peers. Qwest resells wireless service from Sprint Nextel Corp.
A class action for BILLIONS would be about the sweetest thing I could think of. Myself, I look forward to my $1,000.
Begala-come-lately, phooey. I opined that right here at FDL at 8:49 PDT this morning.
Go me
;>)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class action against AT&T in January in federal court in San Francisco. I was so p-o’ed today I sent them a donation- they have cool t-shirts and hats too. Check it out:
http://www.eff.org/
The United States has moved to intervene and dismiss the case, asserting the “military and state secrets privilege.” Shameful.
KO mentions Goldstein. We have to add 1984 to the book Salon. How long since many FDLers have read it? We are now living it!
I
Oops, silly blog software, that wasn’t meant to be an HTML tag.
What I tried to say was “I /
I knew I put up with the terrible Qwest customer service for 22 years for a reason
(heart) my BlackBerry.
LOL
RevDeb @ 14:
Add to the list Brave New World by Huxley, The Tomorrow File by Lawrence Sanders, and The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner.
All elements of the present reality, as well.
We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.
uh, media, when fredo makes this claim, keep in mind there are 300+ million americans in this country. so while ‘millions of innocent americans’ may not be victim to surveillance, millions more most certainly are under surveillance.
i’m thinking of going with carrier pigeons — fortunately, i live in brooklyn so it ought to be a fairly easy transition …
RevDeb @14
Last week I looked at my local library for 1984 and all their copies(5) were checked out. I figured it was aout time to read it again, apparently others do too.
Blackberry claims its transmisions are triply encoded – what makes you assume the NSA can’t crack it? Blackberry cleverly uses old-fashioned pager technology – what makes you think all ‘pages’ aren’t recorded by NSA? Blackberry is another Email device – what makes you think Email is off-limits to NSA ?
And Digital Fortress and everyone run out and rent Minority Report for some reality teevee.
bkny,
until the bird flu gets them—or a hawk.
Am I being alarmist?
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com
IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany — beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.
Only after Jews were identified — a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately — could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.
But IBM’s Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company’s custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.
IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich’s needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.
IBM and the Holocaust takes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries — all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction.
Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century’s greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit.
Only with IBM’s technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany’s war against the Jews — how did Hitler get the names?
O/T maybe, or maybe not (I haven’t figured out the rules here and am confused about being EPU’d. Whazzat?).
Lawyers: please comment on John Yoo, erm, Professor John Yoo, who purports to have been the architect/fabricator of the Unitary Executive notion. I’ve heard him on NPR and he hit me as truly creepy. He seems to be the evil genius behind all the Ashcroft/Gonzalez/Bybee outrageousness.
why couldn’t the telcos be like google? google stood up to bushco.
also … as a former SEC lawyer pointed out … they should have notified their shareholders due to the fiduciary risk of this program … let’s do a little looking on which institutional investors hold these guys and put a little pressure on
Elliot Spitzer – wanna have some fun?
Jonathan Turley coming up right now on Countdown…
clb72
I read that book when it came out and it was chilling. I haven’t been able to think of IBM the same way since. Fascism, we are here.
Actually, it says that any person damaged will receive “no less than” $1,000.
Turley nails it yet again.
Turley says he hopes the phone companies are sued!
These companies aren’t stupid. I’ll bet if you check your contracts and read the fine print, you’ll see a clause in it wrt government and national security. You can bet they had their lawyers all over this shi_ before they turned over the records.
Hypatia @ 5:16 pm (#26) – If John Yoo was protrayed in a 1930s movie, Peter Lorre would play him. Creepy doesn’t even begin to describe him.
Oh, sorry, you were looking for a legal opinion.
revdeb — good point, lol.
re the video of fredo today — man, i would love to have someone analyze it in terms of his body language. notice how his eyes shift back and forth, and at certain points when he is most certainly lying, he furiously blinks. it’s the most shifty performance i’ve seen yet from him.
I used to have an AT&T phone. But every time I used it, the line would click out (just like call-waiting, which I do NOT have). Whoever I was speaking with would invariably ask me to repeat myself, since the line had gone “dead” for 2 seconds.
After 9/11 I just assumed we were all wiretapped. And they called me paranoid.
Let’s see. $1000. for my phone, $100. gift card for my gas rip off….what’s the going price for stealing my vote?
Probably someone mentioned this already, but this sure smells like a quid pro quo with the end of net neutrality being the quid.
It doesn’t make any sense that the phone companies would violate their privacy agreements with customers under NO legal obligation at all.
I know they’re evil, but they’re not stupid.
They got something for turning over the records, and what they got was a promise to control the internet. Anyone know if QWest has been shafted in the legislation to end net neutrality?
ccmask – CNN had someone reading the language in the contracts – it specifies warrants and subpoenas or illegal use of telecom networks – looks like they did not cover themselves
bkny @ 5:13 pm (#20) – Maybe Bush believes in original sin? That way, there’d be no innocent American citizens.
200,000,000 American members of al-Qaeda?
Sigh…there’s just really no justice.
One of my relatives died last year, and I’m handling the estate, which my brother and I and my aunt are sharing equally. We’re just about at the end of things – just waiting for the stupid NJ tax waivers so I can wrap things up. The three stocks in the brokerage account? AT & T, BellSouth and Verizon. AT & T and BellSouth are merging later this summer, and that will mean the end of BellSouth and 1.325 shares of AT & T issued for every share of Bell South. It was going to mean a nice chunk of stock, even split three ways.
I can’t imagine the stock will do anything but go down, down, down. This inheritance has carried us through an extended unemployment of my husband’s, and I was looking at the stock as something I could just put away and let grow. Owning it now will feel like participating in the crime, but dumping it may be a really bad financial move.
I’m angrier than is probably healthy at the breach of trust – again – on the part of my government and the phone companies, and pissed off that what I had hoped would be a small nest egg is more like a rotten egg.
Can’t help thinking about phone company retirees, who may hold large chunks of these stocks, who may suffer a lot more than I will. What I am getting is something I didn’t have before, so I’ll survive no matter what.
There really is no punishment that could make up for the betrayal of the American people that just gets bigger and more serious every day.
Hi, folkses, what a lousy day, huh? I have felt the hair standing up on the back of my neck all day. I have cingular and will look into TMobile which I understand has better reception. Just signed my son up for his first phone with Verizon, not sure I can handle both opt-out fees, we’ll see, maybe after the trip out west.
I don’t believe one thing this administration says about anything and I believe they are capable of anything at all. I think we will find that e-mail has been collected. I also think they will probably try to use the phone lists to identify illegals. I am deeply sorry to say I do not expect this congress to do anything like a real investigation and only legal action or removal for incompetence will stop these utter lunatics.
I expect to learn that after Tom DeLay resigns he will confirm that he has taken a job with some huge right wing christian org to push the racist, homophobic base into action. By then, it will be the below 30%. He will also continue to have influence on his buddies and will certainly be involved in conference calls to the Senate, that is, if he doesn’t go to jail.
For cell phone coverage I have t-mobile. But what about home phone and dsl in nyc (brooklyn) – anyone have any ideas? Do I have to do cable and vonage?
Called Markey’s office today I was so pissed off about this. Thanked the aide for his work on Net Neutrality and complained about this. I said that they had to be related—quid pro-quo. The telcos give W what he wants and the repugs give them what they want. I don’t think the person in the congressional office quite put them together. How could they not be????
Just thinkin’
I re-upped my EFF membership early today in thanks. I’m still breathless with rage. Yes, even though we basically knew six months ago that this was happening.
And since I’m lacking a congressional rep at this point, I directed my letter on the subject to Nancy Pelosi. *g*
Why is your name absent from the amicus brief to the court challenge of warrentless wiretapping, filed yesterday by the ACLU? You are the Minority Leader. You should be first among the elected representatives joining the brief in defense of our rights.
#13
Exactly. But why is this only getting mentioned in comments?
The EFF has been on this case for months, and fighting these fights for years.
The USAToday story, and, unfortunately, many posts writing about it, give too little attention to the EFF’s work and its core work leading to this story. Jeralyn at talkleft makes the connections.
Because I know people at the EFF, and I know how much they get done with relatively few resources (i.e. money) as a non-profit, I’m commenting that people should check out the EFF’s work.
Articles ought not to say NSA-cooperating phone companies ought to be sued without mentioning that AT&T is being sued. The EFF has been doing good work on this, and should get credit (and donations!) for their fight. To have been fighting this for months takes money.
Just covering civil-rights and blogs alone, the EFF’s fights include:
the Right to Blog Anonymously
the Right to Keep Sources Confidential
the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property
the Right to Allow Readers’ Comments Without Fear
the Right to Protect Your Server from Government Seizure
the Right to Freely Blog about Elections
the Right to Blog about Your Workplace and
the Right to Access as Media
Because I’m feeling cynical, I’ll say there is likely to be an economic rather than ethical reason Qwest didn’t turn over records. No doubt they didn’t get the same quid pro quo arrangement (the terms weren’t as lucrative).
& btw – we don’t know if the cable companies are clean or not – just because no one has ratted them out yet. And from what I know of them, I wouldn’t expect them to stand up to the NSA.
And I wonder how much of this “net neutrality” idea is a sort of quid pro quo for wiretapping. You watch our back and we’ll watch yours. wink, wink.
suin: Thanks for the correction. I guess its all about keeping the shareholders happy. I, for one, am changing my phone number in the morning. lol
This all has to do with voting, doesn’t it?
This just came to me…. maybe the people responsible for these leaks aren’t just disgruntled ATT employees — they could be coming from Qwest’s present and former employees.
Think about it. For a present employee, the stock dips ATT, Verizon and SBC will suffer due to this illegal monitoring of traffic will move their stock prices down to Qwest’s level, which ain’t high, to begin with. Qwest begins to look good, to investors and in the court of public opinion. Notebaert (the present CEO) noted that talks between Qwest and the NSA ended this year — which means they can rule out any lucrative goverment bribes to do NSA’s bidding — what do they have to lose, by leaking these arrangement with other companies, which they’d have to know about, in order to negotiate a contract?
As for former staff, a few have incentive to make the sibilings of the Justice Dept. look bad:
Joe Nacchio’s been saying that he was anticipating a stock price increase, due to government contracts coming in:
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3282115
“Nacchio’s defense also will argue that he believed Qwest’s future was bright when he sold his stock. According to The Wall Street Journal, Nacchio’s lawyers may argue that Nacchio believed Qwest was in line to receive lucrative contracts from the federal government – secret, national security contracts that only people near his level would know about.
“It’s the Alice in Wonderland defense,” said Anthony Accetta, a Denver fraud investigator who served as Colorado’s first assistant attorney general in Colorado in the ’70s. “He’s using inside information to justify using inside information?”
It does smack of a certain bravado – the kind for which Nacchio is renowned. Count on Nacchio to stick to the same story he’s been telling for years.
“At any time I sold Qwest stock, I believed that the company’s financial statements represented a full and accurate picture of its financial condition,” Nacchio told a congressional panel in 2002. “I regret that I was unable to complete the job of building Qwest into the global telecommunications leader we had envisioned, and I am truly sorry for any losses suffered by Qwest shareholders and for the thousands of Qwest employees who lost their jobs.”
Anschutz is a rock-ribbed conservative, and a believer of patriotic propaganda. If these leaks happened under his watch, they happened with his consent — which makes him more crafty and dangerous than his Kermit the Frog-billboard foundation images depict.
quireky @ 5:24 pm (#37) – The way they do wiretapping nowadays, you’d never be able to tell. Voice communications are converted to digital, and then transmitted like other data (albeit at a higher priority) over the same data pipes that carry Internet traffic. If they want to tap your phone, they can just make another copy of the data.
On the radio today, a reporter said that Qwest didn’t participate because they had questions about the legal aspect of it. Nothing more specific.
SBC was just recently bought out by AT&T… my other option is getting my landline phone via the cable company…
unfortunately, stuck with Verizon until July for my cell…
ccmask – the shareholders are pissed – bazillion dollar class action suits do not make markets happy … there are a few ceo’s sweating tonight
There will be no accountability for any of this until the Bushites are shut down. As it stands they figure (and they might be right) that they can drag the accountability moment out long enough to ensure SCOTUS lets them off…
BTW, Jane and Christy are the best! FDL!!!
I remember loathing Jonathan Turley during the Clinton impeachment. But he has been great on this issue. He’s virtually called for the impeachment of Bush over the illegal wiretapping.
Jerry Lewis (R-bastid) being investigated now, from Olberman.
Hypatia says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
John Yoo may have assisted in implementing an idea that had been on Dick Cheney’s mind for many years, according to what I have read on other FDL threads. How many other people can you think of who are complicit in attempting to establish an authoritarian government in this country?
Switching from Verizon to Sprint end of the month! I would be surprised if NSA didn’t RECORD every phone conversation and every URL visited.
Hey Mr Genius President-
If we can all figure out(in a day) How to change to Qwest and Sprint, how long will it take the bad guys to switch.
OT but good news:
We’ve just announced officially that Barbara Boxerand Nancy Pelosi will be speaking at Yearly Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/11/202050/962
I live in Jerry Lewis’s district, and I heartily look forward to some new blood in/on that seat…
zennurse says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice to see Qwest’s line of reasoning disseminated?
zennurse/55 – “they had questions about the legal aspect of it” = “they didn’t show us the money”
ReneND #63:
In their eyes, WE are the bad guys.
Slightly OT, June Vanity Fair has a profile of Cheney, comparing his earlier self to his current Valdemort persona. There’s a picture of him that almost looks..well…gentle. It’s disconcerting. But overall, I found that I knew all the facts, and what I didn’t know, he wouldn’t answer for the reporter. He is one very scary guy, according to a number of current and former colleagues. Worth the read, skip nicole richie.
http://tinyurl.com/a6erq
Help Impeach Today
Now… People think this is a waste of time because even the Dems said that they were not going to impeach (yeah right)…
Keep the pressure on Congress… Talking about impeachment wakes people up… They question, it’s a strong motivator to get people thinking. It also lets Congress know how intense the dissapproval is for this President… They seem to be a little slow on the uptake. So please:
1) Sign petitions if you have not done so
2) Send a letter to Congress (both Senators & House rep)
3) Send a copy to the media
4) Enlist friends and family to help, ask them to chip in time
5) Spread the link around, email it (with a request to forward) post it on a blog, or in the comments of a news story.
Help out!!!
Thanks :)
Treo 650 users are happier with their Treo than Blackberry users are with their Blackberrys. (No cite, I read that on teh Intarweb.)
Treo rocks, Blackberry sucks.
Sprint Treo can get you a reasonably priced all the data you can eat plan for much much less than AT&T wants.
I am grandfathered in at $15 per month for all the data I can eat. I eat a lot. I think it’s now $25 – $29 each month. I think AT&T wants something like $50 – $80.
Don’t be a sux0R, get a Tr30!
Skype babies Skype !!!
-can be free, or real real cheap, but be aware all of their switches are in Europe so you’ll save $$$ , thumb your nose at the domestic collaborators, but still subject to NSA monitors
$1000 fine is per violation, not per person
Traders/Market Types -
and I’m thinking even the threat of large scale class action and shareholder suits will drive the share price down ???
Didn’t want to say the “T” word on the internets. ha
Stephen, maybe it will “leak” out?
The idea that the information came from there is very interesting.
Oooh, Boxer and Pelosi, very interesting, siun, wonder where we’ll be then?
Maybe I need to get out more, but was this story leaked today to pre-empt an indictment tomorrow?
Did anybody else see this in the Washington Post this morning? “Jeb Would Make a ‘Great President,’ Bush Says” I thought my head was going to explode. Like any Bush has a chance after this one.
Sorry if this should go into a different thread
By way of Raw Story:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/HE12Dh01.html
Gang, I think Think Progress is wrong on the possible damages AT&T and pals might be liable for — I just read the penalties section of the Stored Communications Act, and it reads to me a hell of a lot like they’re not talking a penalty of $1000 per person aggrieved, they’re talking a penalty of $1000 per violation.
But I’m not a lawyer. Could somebody who is check? Link is here.
Jeb would make a great president!
Of Iraq.
“Skype babies Skype !!!
-can be free, or real real cheap, but be aware all of their switches are in Europe so you’ll save $$$ , thumb your nose at the domestic collaborators, but still subject to NSA monitors”
I use it everyday. Texas to New York, FREE!
I heard Durbin today in the Judiciary committee, reminding them that Gonzales had told them the scope of the NSA program was limited and narrow, and bemoaned the fact that since the committee hadn’t sworn him, he was not under oath. Durbin wants Gonzales back, and sworn this time. Don’t know why he thinks he would get any more answers than he has, since these people show no interest in answering to anyone.
The Republicans I heard just do not get it. “We’re in a war!” “We can’t tell the terrorists what we’re doing!” “They’re not listening, they’re just collecting the numbers!”
Well, guess what, asshats – at some point they have to identify who the numbers belong to, and so far, no one has satisfied me that they are doing even that much legally.
Can’t wait til these ninnies get an earful from their constituents, and if Bush’s ratings aren’t at 28% by Monday, I will eat a bug.
zennurse says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
I think we and/or others discussed this many threads ago: how have his cardiac problems affected his present outlook on life and his personality?
forgot the link !
Think our regular Cozumel uses it, can probably tell ya more
SKYPE
BellSouth is denying having done anything illegal, and they swear they have not disclosed any ‘confidential information’ to the NSA. The CSR I spoke to did not know if my calling records were included under the ‘confidential information’ umbrella or not. It sounded like a careful parsing of words, i.e., “Wilson’s wife” instead of “Valerie Plame”.
Bastards.
SKYPE…
http://www.skype.com/download/
The Administration is in clear violation of at least one and perhaps two laws. Here’s my analysis of the NSA fiasco.
I have a Blackberry, but the service is through Verizon. So, like, they have access to confidential corporate communications? Methinks the corporati ought to be up in arms on this issue, yes?
cbl says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
$1000 fine is per violation, not per person.
“If the phone company acted with a “knowing or intentional state of mind,†then the customer wins actual harm, attorney’s fees, and “in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000.â€
Splitting hairs a bit, each person who shows damage shows, and constitutes, a separate violation. i.e. ten people damaged = ten violations. Also, when statutes are written with damages stated as bare minimums, and with an award of attorney fees, it’s a very good indication that this sort of thing is taken very seriously.
Qwest is $6.51 a share. Probably a very good buy right now. I talked my brother into buying some in 2001. It was expensive and he lost his a$$. I wonder if he still has it? I emailed him–we’ll see.
Listen Jane,before this is all over we’ll
be blogging by carrier pidgeon!
Mash says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Have you looked at the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to see whether any of its provisions apply? Someone mentioned 47 USC 222 on another thread.
ccmask– I wouldn’t wish that on the already suffering people in Iraq or anywhere else. I don’t think the ‘democracy’ there could handle another of our home grown despots.
cbl,
My business partner and I first used Skye when he went to Taiwan about a month ago, FREE! We’re still using it because the sound is “in the same room quality”.
I’m also under contract to Cingular – have to doublecheck how much they’ll ding me for early termination. Do we actually know, though, that these other companies are not also providing data? Just because the revelations have focused on the big 3 doesn’t mean they’re the only ones . . .
I was just reading Skype’s security evaluation, and one of the best selling points for me is that it is encrypted end-to-end.
PDF warning:
http://www.skype.com/security/…..uation.pdf
My dad used to raise pidgeons in Brooklyn when he was a boy. I took my mom to New York for a shopping trip last week and she told me the story. Him and his friends trained them to deliver messages back and forth. I remember growing up, when he’d get mad (there were six of us kids), he’d mutter under his breath “I should’ve kept raising the pidgeons….
“I was just reading Skype’s security evaluation, and one of the best selling points for me is that it is encrypted end-to-end.”
Guess what entity is the world’s leader in breaking encryption? I won’t divulge the name, just the initials: N.S.A.
Would the state PUCs possibly be a point of pressure against the telecoms? It would seem that the states would have some sort of privacy requirement in their regulation of the phone company. You might get a little more aggressiveness in investigating this from, say, an Eliot Spitzer than an Abu Gonzales.
However, doesn’t the discovery process–with classified information involved–pose a huge hurdle in going after the telecoms? I thought EFF recently lost an important motion on just this issue in their class action suit.
91 Stephen Parrish, CPA says:
Have you looked at the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to see whether any of its provisions apply? Someone mentioned 47 USC 222 on another thread.
I think that applies only to records going to third parties other than the government…I’ll double check.
Skype is relatively new and small. 3,500,000 users on line (right now!) world wide.
The fines people are talking about, I don’t believe, apply when the data is given to the government.
What do you get when you elect a Republican as Governor?
Criminals, Corruption and Coverups!
What do you get when you elect a Republican to Congress?
Criminals, Corruption and Coverups!
What do you get when you elect a Republican as President?
Criminals, Corruption and Coverups!
Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
Fitz ‘em all!
Spread the word!
Criminals, Corruption and Coverups!
From Verizon’s web site:
What does it mean to me for Verizon to be a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program?
The TRUSTe seal confirms that Verizon is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. Verizon wants you to feel confident about your privacy when using verizon.com, so we have TRUSTe review this site for compliance with their guidelines. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users’ trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Contact us if you have questions or concerns regarding this statement. If your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe who will serve as a liaison to resolve your concerns.
New thread– GJ in tomorrow!!!
new thread – new tomorrow !
For those thinking of switching check out Working Assets.
http://www.workingassetswireless.com/
I believe they use the Sprint Network and they are honestly a decent “socially responsible” company.
Rus
John Yoo is certainly creepy, but he is just the consigliere. These are Dick Cheney’s plans and purposes pure and simple. Here he was on Sept. 16, 2001 (Thanks to Froomkin, among others)
Thats what he thinks, along with the idea that the powers of the president were excessively hindered by post-watergate legislation. He’s wrong, of course, as is Yoo, but that’s what they think. I imagine that Yoo could argue the other side quite convincingly, however I can’t really picture Big Dick standing up for the little guys civil rights.
peace,
jim
#56 — actually, SBC acquired AT&T, but kept the old name everyone would recognize.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that most of Qwest’s customers whose rights weren’t trampled on are in wildy red states?
detailed info on QWEST at link below -
along with possible quid pro quo, these collaborators were compensated upfront, continue to receive compensation, AND when QWEST balked, it was implied they would lose future contract opportunities
ObsidianWings
Scarborough is telling us to be very afraid!! He is saying the CEO’s should all be fired.
It breaks FCC laws, big brother listening…Joe is pissed!! Yahoo!!
My T-Mobile cellular rep, obviously reading from a script, claimed only land-line companies were cooperating, and that T-Mobile was not. That’s an interesting claim about land-line companies. I wonder why.
T-Mobile claims they would only give out info for a court order or subpoena, and it looks like I’m clean: neither were received for my account! :)
I’m anxious to find out how the this latest Big Brother adventure plays in the polls, because if the real truth about this is not reaching the public, we’re in deep trouble.
And the administration sure has had its most evil enablers out there lying and spinning for them all day long, pulling out all the stops – most especially, Pat Roberts, who has more blood on his hands than just about anybody in Congress.
Here’s a part of the transcript from Lou Dobbs – Roberts hits every buzzword:
ROBERTS: We’ve been out to the NSA. We’ve talked to the people out there who I regard as true patriots who are working 24-7 to detect and deter terrorist attacks that are being plotted right now, even as we speak. And I’m a little incredulous here when — we’re at war with al Qaeda. They’re planning attacks against the United States. We have a program, a highly minimized military capacity to detect and deter and stop these attacks.
We’ve stopped several attacks so it’s been successful. Basically I think what the president said is exactly right. We are not eavesdropping on any American unless you have a court order and there is certainly due cause for that. And we’re certainly not doing anything in terms of data mining or anything like that. All we have is a program that really starts to give our intelligence community exactly what the 9/11 said, act with speed, act with haste, act with agility, act with hot pursuit and that’s what we’re doing.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA…..dt.01.html
I’m not very well-off financially but at least, I always thought, I’m free in a great country. Now I find I’m spied on in a country that uses torture….I don’t know what to think anymore. Actually I know exactly what I think: I want a huge amount of money. It won’t compensate me for loss of privacy, but what the hell. And I want that cretin in the White House removed.
(Another book you all might like for the book club is Jennifer Government. I liked it, it’s not universally liked, though.)
#102 Mad Dogs:
“Criminals, Corruption and Coverups!”
by
Liars and Bribers and Squares, Oh My!
Meanwhile, on the international front, John Boehner told us today that there is a lot of good news coming out of Iraq. Baghdad is really the only problem area, and all the kids are enjoying school. Smile everybody, it’s tax-cuttin’ time!!
Mash @ 101
per the think progress link -(emphasis mine)
1. It violates the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act, Section 2703(c), provides exactly five exceptions that would permit a phone company to disclose to the government the list of calls to or from a subscriber: (i) a warrant; (ii) a court order; (iii) the customer’s consent; (iv) for telemarketing enforcement; or (v) by “administrative subpoena.†The first four clearly don’t apply. As for administrative subpoenas, where a government agency asks for records without court approval, there is a simple answer – the NSA has no administrative subpoena authority, and it is the NSA that reportedly got the phone records.
btw, IANAL, but “(iv) for telemarketing enforcement” refers to the national no calls list – which means there’ been recent amendment activity to the law – right ?
Seems as if it’s time for a One Share campaign to make sure the next ATT, Verizon, etc. shareholder meetings are truly memorable. ATT is trading around $26 and if a million people who don’t own shares now bought one, they would have to rent an incredibly large hall. In spite of their efforts to frame it as such, the tempest would not be in a teapot.
I am not holding my breath for Sprint being a good guy like Qwest..not from my experience with them anyway. I wrote sprintpcs today and asked them if they have handed my data over. I’ll post the reply..that is if i get one.
In the midst of all this NSA “dust up,” Bush today announced his vision for U. S. energy:
http://www.bgladd.com/Bush_Mal…..y_plan.jpg
i have been looking for a way to drop bellsouth and still get the internet (preferably high-speed) here in florida. i called them, and you can guess what they told me. after the news today i am more motivated. any ideas?
#112 everhopeful says: Read the entry “Data Mined” atDailyKos today (Thurs May 11):
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..202649/737
That gives a good summary of the evolution of this. How can you trust them to be honest, and how can you trust them to be competent if they lie repeatedly and to no discernable purpose other than to keep the true story from US citizens? Then remind them that this pointless and very suspicious secrecy is also harmful to getting anything useful done. Remind them of the FBI being worked to death tracking down thousands of useless leads.
Then ask why they need everything, and why they need to keep it forever. If it were needed for estimating an algorithm to detect terrorist communication patterns they would have a much smaller focused sample, which would be repeated periodically. But what do they need everything forever for? It is about legality, it is about civil rights, it is about getting the job done and not screwing up. And them inform them about the Cunningham scandal. I am convinced there is oodles of plain old fasioned fraud and rip off involved too.
Can you say “Class Action” I thought you could. I understand class actions are very easy to accomplish in Louisiana.
First, BlackBerry goes to Canada hence NSA has an ear to it.
Second, Are we sure Sprint did not give the information too.
Keith from Orlando says:
May 11th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Me too…
Everyone,
Don;t jump form one GOP lapdog to another. ATT&T, SPrint, Qwest, all pretty much the same when it comes to it. I made the comment here:
http://www.haloscan.com/commen…..9/#1031812
Working Assets. Becuase you shouldn’t donate to the GOP.
#97:
Of course, but the decryption takes time and processing power, and if everyone’s communications are encrypted, that does give some extra security.
Erich Dethmann says: May 11th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
I would like very much to use working assets; however, they don’t have the Sprint Vision (internet) option nor do their free phones have bluetooth. I suppose I could buy use the phone I have already but I don’t really like it…think I will wait on the reply from Sprint that make the decision for me.
It’s too easy to take this one story and think it tells us much of anything that wasn’t already available on the internet.
The story says the companies involved include AT&T, Verizon and Bell South. It doesn’t say it is limited to them.
Leslie Cauley, the reporter who broke the story in USA Today, was on public TV news tonight and parsed her words carefully when she stated that ‘this program’ only collected patterns of phone numbers and did not monitor actual conversations. It seemed to me she was implictly hinting about other as yet unreported programs which DO record the entire content of all our communications.
BUT…is she a reporter or an NSA operative? No one is yet questioning her sources, as far as I can see, and she’s seems very casual and confident about dropping a bombshell that was explosive enough to tear Bush away from his post-breakfast Gameboy to get the coverup rolling. Maybe this leak was authorized to throw us off. (??) The script could already be written in which Congress is ‘allowed’ to eventually kill this one program. As a result, opposition will be mollified, but the other more invasive, more antiAmerican programs will continue undisturbed.
Let’s wait for a few more of the other 33 shoes to drop before we declare victory.
Don’t be so quick to assume that the other companies have clean hands. I happen to have my doubts about one of the referenced companies. I worked for the company and saw correspondence between that company and the US government that make me suspicious.
What about Working Assets? I bet they’re not snitches and they actually support good causes. Working Assets
I think I just wrote my first link. Go Me!
This is fitting. http://www.totalitarianrepublic.com
I called T-Mobile (my carrier) to confirm that they didn’t cooperate with the NSA. They said they weren’t part of the program, and would only turn over phone records with a court order. So that’s good.
They also said that only phone companies that operate land-lines were approached (which of course doesn’t mean that only land-line records were turned over). First, I think that’s strange. If you’re looking for terrorists, you should care about cell phones, so why would the NSA limit themselves that way? Second, it would be informative to examine the relationship between land-line phone companies and the net neutrality issue. Are land-liners in a aspecial position to gain from not having net neutrality? If so, this is powerful circumstantial evidence that a quid-pro-quo was going on here.
Anyway, I’m not well-versed on the net neutrality issue, so if anyone here is and wants to partake in this small bit of research, it would be interesting to know the results.
Harry @ 123 is correct.
All Blackberry messages ping through Canuckistan.
And now that we have been Luntzified and are in lockstep with your Cabal of Lerros, if the NSA is not ponging those pings we are probably grabbing them for them.
Apologies.
.
WHOA! Sprint, Nextel and all the carriers are not secure. Period. They all use Narus, just like the magic box AT&T whistleblower Klein bitched about when he tattletaled on the domestic spying.
For your information, when AT&T broke up, all the new carriers could get to the market as quickly as they did BECAUSE THEY USE AT&T’S INFRASTRUCTURE AND HARDWARE. Unless you’ve got separate wiring in your voice for Verizon, Sprint, Centel, Nytel, SBC, etc, then your carrier is using the original wiring, whether copper or fibre optic. It’s all controlled by the carrier switches and they all use AT&T’s trunk nodes. Why reinvent the wheel? They pay a per access fee of 1/8 to 1/4 of a penny…sometimes more.
Want secure, or at least waaaaaay more secure? Get Vonage then use Phil Zimmerman’s zFone here:
http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/zfone/index.html
And read about it here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25012
CORRECTION: “Unless you’ve got separate wiring in your house or office …”
Anyone know about or have this Working Assets wireless? They say they have nationwide coverage and apparently this is the same group that published Glenn Greenwald’s Book. I think Glenn said something about them joining an ACLU lawsuit against the government some time ago (though unrelated to this issue I think). Either way they appear to be very progressive in their political stance.
Ms. Hamsher do you know anything about them? Are they worth adding to the “good” list?
Hey San Francisco FDL’ers -
Would anyone care to join me in bringing our phone bills over to Rep. Pelosi’s office here in SF?
It’s the least we can do to preserve the Republic in wartime.
I’ve got some old phone bills lying about here – and more come every month. If you’d like to join me in taking your old phone records to Rep. Pelosi’s office, please feel free to give a holler.
I mean, we give her a lot of flack, but – hey – she’s been getting the NSA briefings.
What do San Franciscans know about the Constitution? Our Rep. must know better – and she sure isn’t signing on to the amicus briefs opposing the NSA illegal spying.
I’ve never been one to place blind trust in anyone – but where has that taken me? Time to turn over a new leaf and place my full faith and confidence in my Congressperson. If the Dems chose her as their leader, who I am to object?
So, if Rep. Pelosi thinks the government should have my old phone records, well gosh golly as a loyal American how can I say no?
If the government needs to break so many laws just to see my old phone records – those records must be vital to national security.
Now I’m not planning any trips to Maryland, so I can’t just them drop off at the NSA.
I’m afraid to mail the records. What if these treaures of national security were lost in the post? Or what if the wrong sort of spook opened my mail to the NSA and saw the secrets? Horrors!
How can I know for certain which spy is reading what agency’s mail?
Does the FBI watch the CIA? Who watches the DIA? Who snoops on the NSA for the DOD?
It’s all too much for this simple citizen. I’ll take my old phone bills down to my Congressperson – she’ll know what to do with my private records.
She knows what to do you with your private records, too: let the NSA take them.
So if you want to help our wise Congressperson serve the NSA, lets get together and visit Rep. Pelosi’s office.
You do want to help, right?
After all, we’re at war.
And a brand shiny-new really fast we promise this time war is just round the corner.
Listen.
I wonder who got the (likely no-bid) contract to run this beast. Anyone want to give odds as to whether this contract was awarded to a crony, perhaps a crony involved in the forni-gate scandal?
http://www.workingassets.com/index.cfm
Link didn’t work in previous post.
Just a thought about the phone contracts.
Now, I know some just aren’t able to afford breaking a contract that may cost $250. They have my sympathy for sure. But for the rest who may be staying with AT&T or whomever because of $250, it doesn’t look so good.
I just signed up two phones with Verizon on contract a few months ago. They can bite me. I’m not rich and my kids aren’t garaunteed a college education yet. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to continually support anybody that thinks my privacy is up for barter. It’s worth a whole lot more than $500 to me. And they can keep their lousy thousand bucks and pay down the deficit with it too.
incontext,
I think you’re onto something. Makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE … NONE … NUNQUE … to collect universes of numbers without a frame of reference. How are they going to determine “terrorist” in the bunch? Throw a dart. Take all the exchanges beginning with 722? What? Find out who’s using their phone the most?
Oh, they argue, traffic patterns. Based on fucking what? A cat’s cradle pattern. Too many concurrent calls?
There’s no logic in this argument.
There MUST be a frame of reference. There has to be. Search KOS for the Narus story. And the Wayback Machine because they’ve sanitized the site. Narus just after 911 was capturing and analyzing 2.6 petabytes of data DAILY for AT&T = 100 billion packet records … DAILY.
Go to the Wayback Machine and punch in narus.com and look at the early stuff. You’ll find their partners, their clients, their customers. AND WEEP.
Narus does all the Backbone Bill Mediation for these carriers. Narus HAS your customer info, you address and SSN. It’s also how AT&T can prove that a carrier owes it for using their nodes.
Here’s a note I just sent off to the MSNBC poll about the tracking of calls. I also sent it to my congresscritters.
Yet another reason for me to demand my country back.
116 cbl says:
May 11th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Mash @ 101
per the think progress link -(emphasis mine)
1. It violates the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act, Section 2703(c)…
This Act would not apply to phone records. Phone records are covered by 18 U.S.C. §§3121-3127 and 50 U.S.C. §§1841-1846. I have a description of them on my post
Tell Jack Cafferty how you feel. Big thanks are in order for his words on CNN this evening. Stop by and thank him, won’t you?
http://thankyoujackcafferty.blogspot.com/
Honorable Senator Nelson,
Your inaction in this constitutional crisis makes you a contributor to the erosion of our constitutional rights. Who is the war on terror against? Did we win the war on drugs? Who was the war on drugs against. Give me an enemy and I will defend our country with my last drop of blood. We are fighting a figment of George Bush’s imagination! He is a know cocaine addict and alcoholic. I do not have confidence in George Bush’s imagination. Please, please, please, stop the madness!
Today I learned the telecom company’s have willingly, without warrant, given perhaps my complete call history since 2001. They may be dissapointed I’ve only called my 78 year old mother. This still concerns me greatly.
Imagine if the British colonialists had this technology? What if the British noticed numerous phone calls between Paul Revere and William Dawes? Would we have had Paul Revere’s ride? Would we have known the Redcoats were coming?
Senator Nelson, this is the reason we have a constitution that has lasted over 200 years. Please do your duty and allow it to prevail another 200 years.
Who would have ever imagined the Nazi party would set fire to the Reichstag? Is it so unbelievable George Bush and the Republicans did the same to the World Trade Center?
Get off your ass and do something! Please, we need patriots, and not Patriot Acts, now more than ever!
America depends upon you!
May God have mercy on our souls!
In His service,
Perry Jordan
Colossians 3:23
Maybe someone could do a better version of the new AT&T Logo, I’m not expert with photo editing:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blo…..ttlogo.gif
Ender-
Yes, Working Assets is worth considering, I am surprised Jane H. did not have it on her list. They aid progressive and social causes and can also send e mails to your congressperson and senator concerning issues that they feel are important. Even though they are based in Pa., I am able to sign up for it here in the Pacific Northwest
Everyone outraged over this intrusion into our privacy should join me in calling my Bellsouth (or your Verizon, or ATT) service rep everyday at 10 AM and 2 PM to report the phone is making strange noises, as if it is being tapped. Everyday for a month–at least a month. But wait, if we were to all call at once, wouldn’t that CRASH THEIR SYSTEMS, if we were to call EVERYDAY AT 10 AM and 2 PM, to report this noise on our line. Maybe this is not such a good idea, to call EVERYDAY AT 10 AM and 2 PM, to report this noise on our line, since it could CRASH THEIR SYSTEMS.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..121156/129
qwest abramoff connection
hey, doesn’t this count as breach of contract on the part of the cell phone company? can they really hold you to a long-term contract commitment in this case?
how much did the companies get paid by the NSA for this info?
SUGGESTED EMAIL FOR VERIZON CUSTOMERS:
According to reports today, Verizon has been providing the NSA with data about the calling history of its customers. Unless Verizon can provide good reasons (per my conditions below) I intend to cancel my Verizon phone service (which I have had for over 30 years) as soon as I can arrange alternatives with my cable provider. In addition, I will in the future make every effort possible to avoid using the services of Verizon or any of its affiliates. In my opinion, Verizon has made a very serious error in judgement by providing the government with any information about its customers without a court order. If Verizon’s defense is that it was complying with the law, I will be open minded enough to reconsider my stance, AS LONG AS THERE IS TRULY A VALID LAW that dictates Verizon’s compliance to such government requests. Please provide me a copy of the statute, or alternatively, directions to a location where I may view such a document at your earliest convenience, but no later than noon, May 24, 2006. If Verizon chooses not to provide this information, please be advised Verizon has lost my business forever. It is not possible to underestimate how unhappy I am about Verizon’s actions. Even if laws exist allowing this despicable intrusion of privacy, Verizon’s not fighting for its customer’s rights and best interests, as I understand Qwest and others have, indicate a complete disconnect of Verizon’s corporate interest in retaining the goodwill of its customers. Perhaps the loss of hundreds of thousand of customers, millions of dollars in revenue, a tarnished reputation, and possible prosecution in our criminal and civil courts will help get Verizon executive’s attention back on the importance of making customers number one once again.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but just because you are not a direct AT&T, Verizon or Bell South customer does necessarily mean records of your calls were not turned over to NSA.
For example, if the person you called was a customer of theirs or, one of their customers called you. In addition, some of the smaller telcos/LD carriers are in essence, resellers of bandwidth for the major players. If so the chances are good records of you call also exist with one of these three.
So what I would like to be able to find out is were any of MY phone calls turned over to NSA. Is there any conceivable way that these companies be forced to answer that question?
i just signed a year’s contract with verizon for broadband before this news came out. i’m horrified. horrified because there’s no way i can get out of it without incurring huge penalties, and also because i guess now they’ve been tracing my visits to lolicon sites.
http://www22.verizon.com/about/privacy/customer/
Disclosure of Information Outside Verizon
Ender (136)
Working Assests is a fantastic Company. They definitely should be on the good guy list.
Careful about Skype. The problem is that it’s proprietary, and started up in Estonia. For all we know, the NSA might have a back door in it, like the one they had in Crypto AG’s gear in the 1980s.
Some background: Crypto AG was a Swiss company that would sell to anyone, and the Libyan government was a big customer. What the Libyans didn’t know was that the NSA had corrupted Crypto AG somehow and inserted a back door in their communications gear, so that the US could decrypt all of Libya’s secure traffic. We have no idea whether or not the US government, or someone else, has a similar hole in Skype.
The only trustworthy crypto software is open source software, and then only well-known and respected open source software that has been out there for some years and probed for holes by security researchers.
Joe Buck:
I was admittedly skeptical when open source software began to appear several years ago.
But as more and more open source solutions began to appear, I began to see the light.
When the first enterprise class application began to appear, I was amazed.
Shortly, I will begin a project evaluating Asterisk, an open source PBX system for our
company.
Finally, I’m now convinced that the ONLY solution for verifiable voting software is open source. It’s simply too important to be left to the proprietary vendors.
End italics as well!
Remember the statement said that these major telecommunication companies were “contracted”. They may be making a bundle off this scam.
Some interesting things to look at:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/p…..o-logo.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…..ess_Office
congress slapped the executive branches hand on all of this stuff three years ago, but Bush just went behind their backs and continued on with his programs.
Anything they use against us can be taken down and used against them. ( Janes underpants may be takenb down and used against my…sorry. Got excited there. Won’t happen again.)
The DARPA create the internet – great!
They create the Totalitarian Information Agency – fine. We’ll create Google, remailers, Blog mirrors, Indymedia’s, Wiki’s, freenets and wildnets. Information seeks to move free – information finds a way.
Soon it will be time for PAM the terminatrix. This idea , like PROMIS, was stolen from a freelance softdrill engineer and was supposed to go private in 2004.
http://www.nex.com/innews.htm
Do you want to know more?
My pic is up for a short time at my blog at Live journal. ‘ Butt darling’
Will work for Janes underpants.
Cryptoanarchy, infoanarchy and Janes underpants Oh MY!
That story from Japan was very interesting. There was a story about ‘ Assassination politics’ there once and they are pretty futuristic in a lot of ways.
One of the Pupugs Senator’s today, ‘ they want to KILL US! ‘
Yeah – and that’s just for starters.
Shrubs eyes gave him away – every lie and they flickered rightwards. There were several lies in that little epistle. So more than one cover-up is ongoing. More than one massive crime in progress – compounding interest in what they all have to hide.
Hit em again Fitz.
Mr. Ivan G. Seidenberg
Chief Executive Officer
Verizon Corporation
Via e-mail ivan.g.seidenberg@verizon.com
Dear Mr. Seidenberg:
My name is and I am a Verizon customer.
I read a newspaper account in USA Today on May 11, 2006 regarding the transfer of information regarding telephonic activity conducted by Verizon customers to the NSA.
I have no doubt you are aware of this article and the allegations it makes given your executive position.
The Stored Communications Act, Section 2703(c), provides five exceptions that would permit a phone company to disclose to the government the list of calls to or from a subscriber:
(i) a warrant;
(ii) a court order;
(iii) the customer’s consent;
(iv) for telemarketing enforcement; or
(v) by “administrative subpoena.â€
I respectfully request a response to this communication with the following information:
1. Did Verizon in fact provide information regarding my telephonic activity to NSA?
2. If yes, what legal authority does Verizon have for doing so? It would appear that no exception listed under Section 2703 (c) would legally permit this action by Verizon.
(a) Was either a warrant or court order issued?
(b) Please provide any basis you consider equivalent to my having given Verizon consent (direct, implied or in any manner whatsoever) to provide NSA this information. If Verizon is taking the position that I have in any way consented to the transfer of this information, that alleged consent (which I do not concede until it is finally judicially determined to be valid) is hereby retracted. Verizon is hereby notified that I affirmatively DO NOT CONSENT to any transfers of information of any sort inconsistent with the pertinent statutes and NEVER HAVE CONSENTED to such transfers.
(d) I see no way the USA Today allegations can be characterized as telemarketing enforcement.
(e) It is my understanding that NSA has no legal authority to issue administrative subpoenas.
I look forward to hearing from you. (I am also sending this communication to you by US Mail Certified RRR.)
name
address
city state zip
609 9xx xxxx and several other numbers
According to Qwest’s website, they offer local phone service in the following states:
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Iowa
Minnesota
Montana
Nebraska
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
South Dakota
Utah
Washington
Wyoming
(I live in Pennsylvania so I’m out of luck as far as ditching Verizon as my local service provider) :(
I just called Verizon and spoke to a representative who stated that “Verizon does not record your phone activity in any way”. I pressed furthur. “So Verizon is not recording my conversations and submitting them to the NSA?”
A brief pause and finally, “No.”
Are we being lied to????
Verizon Wireless Denies Snooping
From their reply to my request for cancellation due to their breach of contract:
Does anyone have credible information to suggest that the reply VZW is sending is a lie? They are denying involvement outright, suggesting involvement is limited to wired Verizon.
I suspect this is of being a mere “beard” of a technicality, since all wireless calls use the wireless infrastructure as a simple conduit to a wired switch. No doubt in VZW’s case the switch is a Verizon wired switch, dirty as hell.
What about Unicel? Did that company provide info the the guv’ment?
I’m going to start compiling this information and putting it on line. Please email me any other relevant info on class action lawsuits, alternate phone/web services etc and I’ll get it out there.
misbeliever2006@yahoo.com
Before we get all excited about Qwest, let’s read up on what else their management funds:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..54RDN1.DTL
misbeliever.blogspot.com
Who knew that “Can you hear me now” were actually code words for the Bush Administration.
I am so outraged I’m about to pop a gasket!
I have three phone lines in my house with BellSouth (home, ofice and fax line). Just got off the phone with Time Warner Cable to have their service installed – and the CEO of BellSouth will be getting a letter from me.
My cell is with Cingular (AT&T). Gonna cancel that contract and go w/ T mobile or Sprint – and the CEO of AT&T will get the same “ass-whoopin” letter!
I am addicted to my crackberry now, so if you make the investment just know that you will have to learn to type on very tiny keys.
I read FDL on it every morning on the bus after TPM and it makes the commute a breeze…
I suspect the next big story to break is that the NSA has been using some Carnivore-esque program in a mass way. Isn’t technology great!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(FBI)
Yawn. You are all so silly and hysterical!
I am so thankful that you are currently out of power. It looks like your beloved Qwest CEO will probably go to jail for ACTUALLY BREAKING THE LAW:
The Case Against Qwest’s Nacchio
The telecom’s former CEO has finally been indicted — for fraud and insider trading. Getting a conviction will be no slam dunk
He was the last major CEO connected with the telecom bust still under investigation. On Dec. 20, the feds came down on Joseph P. Nacchio. The 56-year-old former CEO of Qwest Communications (Q ) was charged with 42 counts of securities fraud and insider trading. According to the eight-page indictment filed in federal court in Denver, Nacchio knew by August, 2000, that Qwest’s publicly stated financial targets were extremely aggressive and meeting them would be a “huge stretch.”
http://www.businessweek.com/te…..d=rss_tech
Be afraid!!! Be very afraid! Republicans are going to come and start snatching you from your homes in the middle of the night and transport the women to birthing centers and send the men off to attack all the countries in the world.
Sadly, that is exactly how you all sound: crazy.
Republicans are going to come and start snatching you from your homes in the middle of the night
These would be the same Republicans who don’t even have the balls to go fight a war they claim to support, right?
Gee, I’m really (yawn) worried.
Let qwest know how important that Constitution is to America and how we value companies that refuse to roll over like a good Nazi….the phone number to leave a message is 1-866-285-0983. If you don’t already have qwest..maybe now is a GREAT time to get it!
Cingular also refused. I don’t know why because they are owned by Bell South and being sold to ATT, but they refused. Cnet did a survey of most carriers and reported Cingular as refusing to cooperate