ProPublica dropped a blockbuster article in the New York Times on Saturday exposing details of AT&T’s decades long partnership with the NSA.
You can read the entire article and access supporting documents at ProPublica here. You can also read at the New York Times here.
A key paragraph:
While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.
Also particularly damning is this:
One document reminds N.S.A. officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, noting, “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.”
CREDO published a statement on the expose:
“As a telecom that can be compelled to participate in unconstitutional surveillance, we know how important it is to fight for our customers’ privacy and only hand over information when required by law,” said CREDO Mobile Vice President Becky Bond. “It’s beyond disturbing what’s being reported about a secret government relationship with AT&T that NSA documents describe as ‘highly collaborative’ and a ‘partnership, not a contractual relationship,’”
“CREDO Mobile supports full repeal of the illegal surveillance state as the only way to protect Americans from illegal government spying,” Bond continued, “and we challenge AT&T to demonstrate concern for its customers’ constitutional rights by joining us in public support of repealing both the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act.”
The story was written by Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson of ProPublica in collaboration with Charlie Savage and James Risen of The New York Times, and with contributions from Henrik Moltke and Laura Poitras working as special to ProPublica.
It’s worth remembering that back in 2008, in response to growing public scrutiny of allegations that AT&T and other telecoms willingly helped the NSA with its unconstitutional and warrantless spying programs, that Congress granted future and retroactive immunity to the telecom companies to shield them from any criminal prosecution for illegally aiding the surveillance.
During the hotly contested debate, Senator Orrin Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees made it clear that immunity was necessary to ensure that the telecom companies would continue to help the intelligence agencies with requests that were increasingly likely to be challenged in courts.
CNN quoted Sen. Hatch in 2008:
"They patriotically complied with the top government request to cooperate so that we could interdict phone calls from terrorists," he said. "And frankly, if we do not give retroactive immunity, there is not a general counsel of any of these companies that would [again] expose their company to the ... litigation that has come since."
It was no surprise then that EFF’s case against AT&T for complicity in secret and unconstitutional spying on Americans was dismissed after Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
CREDO and the Daily Kos community pushed back hard when then Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama flip flopped on the issue.
James Risen covered this himself in the New York Times, reporting on July 2, 2008:
In recent days, more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on a social networking site on Mr. Obama’s own campaign Web site. They are calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President Bush to expand the government’s domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Risen also quotes Markos in the same 2008 report:
Markos Moulitsas, a liberal blogger and founder of the Daily Kos Web site, said he had decided to cut back on the amount of money he would contribute to the Obama campaign because of the FISA reversal.
“I will continue to support him,” Mr. Moulitsas said in an interview. “But I was going to write him a check, and I decided I would rather put that money with Democrats who will uphold the Constitution.”
Worth noting that Risen could have faced jail time for refusing to identify the source of his reporting on the CIA and has called the Obama administration “The greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”
Because telecoms that participate in unconstitutional government surveillance enjoy retroactive immunity, companies caught collaborating with the NSA may never be held accountable for any illegal acts. However, customers have the power to decide what companies they want to support with their phone, cable and internet bills. I suspect a lot of AT&T customers after reading this article will be thinking long and hard about the company they keep.
In June 2015, CREDO received the highest rating possible from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for defending its customers' privacy rights. EFF released its annual report, "Who Has Your Back?" examining the steps online and telecommunications companies have taken to protect user data. CREDO has also raised more than $79 million for social change including funding for civil liberties groups like EFF, ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Becky Bond is the political director of CREDO Action and vice president of CREDO Mobile.