The second-largest telecom country in the United States has been on the Central Intelligence Agency’s payroll to the tune of $10 million a year in exchange for voluntarily handing over troves of phone logs, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Citing federal officials with knowledge of the program, The
Times’ Charlie Savage wrote that telecommunication giant AT&T
has been routinely collaborating in CIA investigations by
surrendering phone records to the agency and even scouring vast
archives of dated logs on their behalf since at least 2010,
adding yet another scandalous chapter in the sordid story of the
telecom’s long-lasting and often elusive relationship with the
government.
The exchange has not been codified into any official program or
covered under a specific law, Savage said, but is rather done
through a voluntary contract in which AT&T is awarded
millions of dollars annually in exchange for searching its
databases for the CIA in instances where the agency provides the
phone number of an overseas terrorism suspect whose contacts are
then called into question.
AT&T will scour these databases to search for information on
foreign targets, Savage wrote, collecting in the process
collateral intelligence about American persons who may have been
in contact with the overseas suspect at any time in the past.
Representatives for both the CIA and AT&T declined to confirm
the existence of the program to the Times, with the intelligence
agency acknowledging that it is forbidden from “acquiring
information concerning the domestic activities of US
persons.” According to Savage, however, AT&T has indeed
handed over information pertaining to American citizens, the
likes of which are supposedly subject to privacy safeguards —
that could then be bypassed by other US agencies.
“Most of the call logs provided by AT&T involve
foreign-to-foreign calls, but when the company produces records
of international calls with one end in the United States, it does
not disclose the identity of the Americans and ‘masks’ several
digits of their phone numbers,” Savage said officials told
him.
At that point, he added, the CIA could contact the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and ask for an administrative subpoena
compelling AT&T to provide information about the American
subject.
“The bureau handles any domestic investigation, but sometimes
shares with the CIA the information about the American
participant in those calls,” Savage again said his sources
informed him.
Speaking on behalf of the CIA, spokesman Dean Boyd told the Times
that the agency “protects the nation and upholds privacy
rights of Americans by ensuring that its intelligence collection
activities are focused on acquiring foreign intelligence and
counterintelligence in accordance with US laws.”
“We value our customers’ privacy and work hard to protect it
by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects. We do not
comment on questions concerning national security,” AT&T
spokesman Mark Siegel added.
Should Savage’s claim hold true, however, the conduct of the
telephone company could fall directly counter to promises made on
its website, particularly one sentence on a page that lists
“Our privacy commitments.”
“We will not sell your personal information to anyone, for any
purpose. Period,” AT&T assures its customers.
A caveat says that AT&T will indeed share
personal information, however, to “Comply with court orders,
subpoenas, lawful discovery requests and other legal or
regulatory requirements, and to enforce our legal rights or
defend against legal claims.” Another says information could
be shared with “a responsible governmental entity in emergency
or exigent circumstances or in situations involving immediate
danger of death or serious physical injury.”
According to Savage’s sources, however, no court order is
necessary for the sort of specific collaboration cited in the
Times, and the exchange of millions of dollars annually suggests
that the relationship is one that involves legitimate business
transactions — with one party being the intelligence arm of the
United States.
But as Savage and others were quick to point out, the CIA’s
conduct in this case all too much emulates the behavior of
another major intelligence community player: the National
Security Agency. The NSA has maintained an alliance with AT&T
that has been highly documented for years, raising additional
questions about the immense scope — and cost — of the federal
government’s efforts to infiltrate the telecom industry.
In 2007, former AT&T technician Mark Klein blew the whistle
on a program that involved the NSA tapping all Internet data
traveling into one of the company’s major California data hubs.
Then just this year, intelligence contractor-turned-leaker Edward
Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting millions of call
records from multiple telecoms on a regular basis while also
working hand-in-hand with certain Internet services to eavesdrop
on online communications. According to one document released by Snowden, the NSA has paid
those companies millions of dollars in order to cover the cost of
maintaining that Internet surveillance program, code-named PRISM.
Elsewhere in their Privacy Policy, AT&T acknowledges, “We
share your Personal Information with companies that perform
services for us” and adds “we cannot guarantee that your
Personal Information will never be disclosed in a manner
inconsistent with this Policy.”
Source: RT
