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Title: Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say
Source:
Bloomberg via Raw Story
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle ... 6sid%3DabIV0cO64zJE%26refer%3D
Published: Jun 30, 2006
Author: Bloomberg
Post Date: 2006-07-02 08:12:32 by Zipporah
Keywords: None
Views: 217
Comments: 17
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court. The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages. ``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.'' The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists. ``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T may neither confirm nor deny AT&T's participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail. U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment. Pioneer Groundbreaker The NSA initiative, code-named ``Pioneer Groundbreaker,'' asked AT&T unit AT&T Solutions to build exclusively for NSA use a network operations center which duplicated AT&T's Bedminster, New Jersey facility, the court papers claimed. That plan was abandoned in favor of the NSA acquiring the monitoring technology itself, plaintiffs' lawyers Bruce Afran said. The NSA says on its Web site that in June 2000, the agency was seeking bids for a project to ``modernize and improve its information technology infrastructure.'' The plan, which included the privatization of its ``non-mission related'' systems support, was said to be part of Project Groundbreaker. Mayer said the Pioneer project is ``a different component'' of that initiative. Mayer and Afran said an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee. Stop Suit On June 9, U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York stopped the lawsuit from moving forward while the Federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington rules on a U.S. request to assign all related telephone records lawsuits to a single judge. Robert Varettoni, a spokesman for Verizon, said he was unaware of the allegations against AT&T and declined to comment. Earlier this week, he issued a statement on behalf of the company that Verizon had not been asked by the NSA to provide customer phone records from either its hard-wired or wireless networks. Verizon also said that it couldn't confirm or deny ``whether it has any relationship to the classified NSA program.'' Mayer's lawsuit was filed following a May 11 USA Today report that the U.S. government was using the NSA to monitor domestic telephone calls. Earlier today, USA Today said it couldn't confirm its contention that BellSouth or Verizon had contracts with the NSA to provide a database of domestic customer phone call records. Jeff Battcher, a spokesman for Atlanta-based BellSouth, said that vindicated the company. ``We never turned over any records to the NSA,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``We've been clear all along that they've never contacted us. Nobody in our company has ever had any contact with the NSA.'' The case is McMurray v. Verizon Communications Inc., 06cv3650, in the Southern District of New York. To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net
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#1. To: Zipporah (#0)
Not only this, but the conflict in Afganistan, the D.H.S., and the Patriot Act, were all drawn up and ready to go. Mark
so to what conclusion can we come... they needed a Perle Harbor..to put all this in motion.. didnt they ;P
Seven months before 9/11 would have been February 2001. They sure got started early.
That's a very limited retraction, of course. It, like the following statement from the telcom official, leaves open at least one possibility that people have speculated on: that any dealings hetween NSA and the telcoms were indirect, through a buffer company.
Plan ahead?
It may have begun before 9-11. But it did not begin before the 9-11 plot was hatched by the Bush admin immediately after taking office. The 9-11 plot and illegal spying began concurrently.
Check out my blog, America, the Bushieful.
I guess spying on the terrorists would have been a good way to make sure that the 9/11 plot was going forward as planned.
Yep. I'm sure that they were (and are) worried about whistleblowers. I wonder how many would-be whistleblowers have been preemptively renditioned?
Check out my blog, America, the Bushieful.
Most certainly. These PNAC murders were just laying all the ground work for 911. Bush had no domestic or overseas agenda till 911. His poll numbers were in the toliet. The theory behind his domestic Constitutional stripping agenda is/was "I`m a war president. No one will question me". In the meantime, he signing agreements about the NAU with Canada and Mexico. Mark
81. Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA. I found this extract on the Daily Kos thread.
BEFORE 9/11 ping!
BEFORE 9/11 ping!
Yep, 7 months prior...about the same time DC insiders were leaking Mid-East war plans...
So now we're talking immediately after the Supremes annointed him.
Look at #10. Within 11 days of the inauguration (which would put it around the same time as the murder of Gus Boulis. Was somebody settling all his debts, like in The Godfather?)
Cooper was the hugest thorn in their backsides... What did poor Gus know, or was he just in the way? Is SunCruz more than meets the eye? Simple revenge and/or greed seems so petty. Pioneer Groundbreaker I'll hand this to the NeoCommies, they have a wry sense of humor.
#2. To: Kamala (#1)
Not only this, but the conflict in Afganistan, the D.H.S., and the Patriot Act, were all drawn up and ready to go.
#3. To: Zipporah (#0)
The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
#4. To: Zipporah (#0)
Earlier today, USA Today said it couldn't confirm its contention that BellSouth or Verizon had contracts with the NSA to provide a database of domestic customer phone call records.
#5. To: aristeides (#3)
Seven months before 9/11 would have been February 2001. They sure got started early.
#6. To: aristeides (#3)
Seven months before 9/11 would have been February 2001. They sure got started early.
#7. To: Arator (#6)
#8. To: aristeides (#7)
I guess spying on the terrorists would have been a good way to make sure that the 9/11 plot was going forward as planned.
#9. To: Zipporah (#2)
#10. To: Arator (#8)
Excerpt from a 38-page amended complaint in Mayer v. Verizon et al, Southern District of New York, Docket No. 16, filed June 23, 2006, entered June 27, 2006:
#11. To: Zipporah, *9-11* (#0)
The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
#12. To: All, mehitable, Mekons4, Ferret Mike, Dakmar (#11)
The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
#13. To: robin (#12)
“Yes, but is this good for Jews?"
#14. To: Eoghan, aristeides, ..., Zipporah (#13)
Yep, 7 months prior...about the same time DC insiders were leaking Mid-East war plans...
#15. To: robin (#14)
#16. To: aristeides (#3)
Seven months before 9/11 would have been February 2001. They sure got started early.
“Yes, but is this good for Jews?"
#17. To: aristeides (#15)
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