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US Builds Massive Database of Domestic Calls: Paper
CAIRO, May11 , 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The US has been secretly building a database containing phone call records of billions of domestic phone calls as part of the controversial domestic spying program, a leading American daily said Thursday, May11 .
"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," one source told USA Today, declining to be identified by name or affiliation.
He said the National Security Agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within US borders using records provided by AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.
Despite serious concerns by top lawmakers, US President George Bush nominated on Monday, May8 , General Michael Hayden, who supervised the controversial domestic spying program, to be the new CIA director.
Bush has defended an executive order he signed in 2002 allowing eavesdropping without warrants, saying it was limited only to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to Al-Qaeda.
"In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-05/11/article02.shtml
READ FULL ARTICLE IN USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
He said the National Security Agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within US borders using records provided by AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.
Despite serious concerns by top lawmakers, US President George Bush nominated on Monday, May8 , General Michael Hayden, who supervised the controversial domestic spying program, to be the new CIA director.
Bush has defended an executive order he signed in 2002 allowing eavesdropping without warrants, saying it was limited only to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to Al-Qaeda.
"In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-05/11/article02.shtml
READ FULL ARTICLE IN USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
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AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.
The White House defended its overall eavesdropping program and said no domestic surveillance is conducted without court approval.
"The intelligence activities undertaken by the United States government are lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks," said Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, who added that appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on intelligence activities.
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa.phonerecords.ap/index.html
Agency collecting information on tens of millions of Americans, paper says
Updated: 12:57 p.m. ET May 11, 2006
WASHINGTON - Following a report that the U.S. agency in charge of a domestic spying program is building a database of every phone call made within the country, President Bush told the nation from the White House that all anti-terrorism efforts are within the law.
Facing new concerns in Congress, President Bush referred to the report but did not confirm or deny it, and instead sought to assure Americans that their privacy is being “fiercely protected.”
“We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” Bush said. “Our efforts are focused on links to al-Qaida and their known affiliates."
He vowed to do everything in his power to fight terror and “we will do so within the laws of our country.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call phone company executives to appear before the panel “to find out exactly what is going on.”
“We’re really flying blind on the subject and that’s not a good way to approach the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional issues involving privacy,” Specter said of domestic surveillance in general.
USA Today said Thursday that the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. — but that the program “does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.”
Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.
USA Today said its sources for the story were “people with direct knowledge of the arrangement,” but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., argued that the program “is not a warrantless wiretapping of the American people. I don’t think this action is nearly as troublesome as being made out here, because they are not tapping our phones.”
But another Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told Fox News Channel: “The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?”
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