NEW YORK, May 16, 2006
Congress To Be Briefed On NSA
Full Intelligence Panels To Hear About Controversial Surveillance Programs
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Play CBS Video Video NSA Briefings Begin Congress is finally being briefed about the NSA's activities after disclosures that the spy agency eavesdropped on phone calls without court orders. Gloria Borger has the story.
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Video Phone Carriers Deny NSA Link Three phone carriers - Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T - have refuted the USA Today report that they provided the federal government will millions of phone records. Jim Stewart reports.
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Video Phone Companies' NSA Denial Three giant telecommunications companies that reportedly had turned over millions of consumers' phone records to a national spy agency now say they didn't. Jim Stewart reports.
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(AP / CBS)
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Interactive Domestic Surveillance The debate over the Bush administration's controversial wiretapping program.
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Who's Who Spy Agency Chiefs A glimpse at those who have headed the Central Intelligence Agency since its inception.
The statement came a day after BellSouth Corp. issued a similar denial.
"One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers' domestic calls," the statement read.
Verizon's denial did not apply to MCI, which Verizon acquired in January this year. In an earlier statement, Verizon said it is in the process of ensuring that its policies are put in place in the former MCI business.
A story in USA Today last Thursday said Verizon, AT&T Inc. and BellSouth had complied with an NSA request for tens of millions of customer phone records after the 2001 terror attacks. The report sparked a national debate on federal surveillance tactics.
White House press secretary Tony Snow was asked about the phone record issue on CBS News' The Early Show Wednesday.
"You're assuming that program exists, and we neither confirm nor deny it," Snow said.
"There seems to be some controversy with the phone companies, all of whom have now said they don't do this sort of thing. ... Now USA Today is having some difficulty with the story itself."
The USA Today story cited anonymous sources "with direct knowledge of the arrangement."
"We're confident in our coverage of the phone database story," USA Today spokesman Steve Anderson said.
Verizon's statement suggested that USA Today may have erred in not drawing a distinction between long-distance and local telephone calls.
"Phone companies do not even make records of local calls in most cases because the vast majority of customers are not billed per call for local calls," Verizon said.
Intelligence analysts suggest that it's the long-distance calls and the international calls that the government has the most interest in,Stewart reports. But what's not clear is whether the NSA relies on the phone companies to provide them with that kind of information, or whether it has the ability to just tap into it itself.
The denials by Verizon and BellSouth leave AT&T as the sole company named in the USA Today article that hasn't denied involvement. On Thursday, San Antonio-based AT&T said it had "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare," but said it would assist only as allowed within the law.
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said Tuesday the company had no further comment.
The other major long-distance company, Sprint Nextel Corp., has issued a statement similar to AT&T's.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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