National Security Agency

How do you get Eliot Spitzer's attention? The New York Civil Liberties Union wants to know.

The organization claims to have made several requests to the AG's office asking for an investigation into allegations that the telecom giants, AT&T and Verizon, have shared millions of New Yorkers' telephone records with the National Security Agency. They mailed letters (one on May 24th, one on June 26th), sent petitions (the first with 510 signatures, the second with 4033), and followed up on the phone.

So far, they say: no response.

"The one person who has the best record of not being intimidated by the federal government is Eliot Spitzer," said NYCLU staff attorney Corey Stoughton. "So it would be really great if he could step up."

The NYCLU says the Attorney General 's office has the authority to look into whether AT&T and Verizon violated New Yorkers' privacy and consumer rights, pointing out that the New Jersey Attorney General issued subpoenas to five telephone companies, including AT&T and Verizon, last month and that Vermont's Attorney General is assisting with an investigation by the state's Department of Public Service.

But a spokesperson for the Attorney General just told us that all requests are processed and evaluated, and promised to check into the status of the NYCLU's letters and petitions. No word yet, obviously, on an investigation.

-- Lizzy Ratner Update: Spitzer spokeswoman Juanita Scarlett called yesterday to say that the June 26th follow-up letter and petition from the NYCLU had not yet arrived, but that the NYCLU shouldn'th hold its breath for a positive reply. "Considering that Congress is looking into the matter and the ACLU has launched a lawsuit, it is not likely our office will open an investigation," she said.

In the spirit of New York magazine's we-almost-revealed-the-JT Leroy-hoax press release a few months back, The Nation's publicity director, Mike Webb, fired off a release this afternoon--in the wake of USA Today's exclusive NSA data-mining blockbuster--about his own magazine's coverage of NSA data-mining.

Webb's message cites the work of writer Tim Shorrock:

In a cover story published on March 1, 2006, Shorrock wrote, "Some (major telecom) companies...have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates."

So was it The Nation that really got the scoop that the NSA is running pattern analysis on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans? Helpfully, Webb appends the full text of Shorrock's story, including the relevant passage--in context and without ellipses (emphasis added):

Two months after the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens, only three corporations--AT&T, Sprint and MCI--have been identified by the media as cooperating. If the reports in the Times and other newspapers are true, these companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages and e-mails without warrants from a special oversight court established by Congress under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some companies, according to the same reports, have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates."

• 0 comments

The etiquette and morality of leaking is not always easy to understand, especially for citizens outs  read more »

Other than a possible hiccup in the volume of telephone sex, did the revelation that the National Se  read more »

New York Times editors published reporter James Risen’s December account of National Security Agen  read more »

New York Times editors published reporter James Risen’s December account of National Security  read more »