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NSA Secretly Collecting Massive Phone Call Records
[May 11, 2006]

NSA Secretly Collecting Massive Phone Call Records


TMCnet News
 

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) WASHINGTON, May 11_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING BUSH'S COMMENTS)

The National Security Agency of the United States has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T (News - Alert) Corp., Verizon (News - Alert) Communications Inc. and BellSouth (News - Alert) Corp., USA TODAY reported Thursday, quoting people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.



The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans -- most of whom are not suspected of any crime, the report said.


President George W. Bush did not confirm or deny the report, but said that domestic intelligence-gathering efforts target only the al-Qaida terrorist network and do not infringe on the privacy of ordinary U.S. citizens.

"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates," Bush said in a statement before reporters. "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

Bush stressed that the intelligence activities he has authorized "are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress."

This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations, but the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources were quoted as saying in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation, the report said. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made -- across town or across the country -- to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged, the report said. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop -- without warrants -- on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the United States.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."


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