USA Today: We Lied About NSA Databank

[biglou71]

USA Today: Call database not so broad

USA Today acknowledged in a "note to our readers" Friday that it could not establish that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the National Security Agency to provide it with customer calling records, as it previously reported.

But spokesman Steve Anderson said "this is an important story that holds up well. At the heart of our report is the fact that NSA is collecting phone call records of millions of Americans."

"What we address in the editors’ note," he said, "deals with the fact that we originally reported that the telephone companies were working under contract with the NSA. We’ve concluded that we cannot establish that BellSouth or Verizon entered into a contract with the NSA to provide the bulk calling records."

In an accompanying story, the newspaper reported Friday that lawmakers on House and Senate intelligence committees have said that while the NSA has amassed a huge database calling records, cooperation with the NSA by telephone companies was not as extensive USA Today initially reported on May 11.

USA Today at that time reported that, according to its sources, AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. all agreed to provide the agency with domestic call records. The newspaper said Friday that Verizon and BellSouth deny they contracted to provide the NSA with records of their customers’ phone calls. AT&T has neither confirmed nor denied the newspaper’s report.

Some lawmakers briefed on the program said NSA has a database of domestic calls that includes numbers called and the length of conversations, but not what was said. Five members of the intelligence committees said they’d been told by intelligence officials that AT&T, the nation’s largest telecommunications company, did cooperate in providing NSA with call records.

Five lawmakers on the intelligence committees said they’d been told that BellSouth did not turn over call records, and three lawmakers said they’d been informed that Verizon did not turn over call records to the NSA.

Lawmakers who support the Bush administration’s domestic spying program see the apparent gaps in the database as a problem.

"It’s difficult to say you’re covering all terrorist activity in the United States if you don’t have all the (phone) numbers," Sen. Saxby Chambliss (news, bio, voting record), R-Ga., told USA Today. "It probably would be better to have records of every telephone company."

In its note to readers, USA Today vowed to "continue to report on the contents and scope of the database as part of its ongoing coverage of national security and domestic surveillance."

Said Anderson: "There have been no denials that this database exists. Nineteen members of Congress who have been briefed following the May 11 article have confirmed the existence of the database."

USA Today is published by Gannett Co.

Readers will recall that we pretty much thought that USA Today was misrepresenting the facts when they published their story.

But since USA Today doesn’t have the contacts to get real national security secrets to leak, they had to make up something to sell their cartoon paper.

http://www.sweetness-light.com/index.php?tag=usa_today

Moto of the Main stream meida :"Making up the new that we have decided you want to hear!"

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

Moto of the Main stream meida :"Making up the new that we have decided you want to hear!"

You really should use more accurate wording in your thread titles otherwise you are no better than those entities you attack:

Said Anderson: "There have been no denials that this database exists. Nineteen members of Congress who have been briefed following the May 11 article have confirmed the existence of the database."

The only detail about this story that USA Today was incorrect on was the level of cooperation between the phone companies cited by name and the NSA. The fact that these phone companies, as it turns out, have NOT been cooperating w/ the NSA as USA-T initially (and incorrectly) indicated raises the concern level on our privacy rights even HIGHER. So HOW has the NSA been obtaining these phone call records? STEALING them? The next question would be, what gives them the right to do that?

 

[MonsterMark]

You really should use more accurate wording in your thread titles otherwise you are no better than those entities you attack:

I would say the title is pretty accurate.

If Bush 'lied' about WMD, USA Today 'lied' about the NSA program.

 

[fossten]

You really should use more accurate wording in your thread titles otherwise you are no better than those entities you attack:



The only detail about this story that USA Today was incorrect on was the level of cooperation between the phone companies cited by name and the NSA. The fact that these phone companies, as it turns out, have NOT been cooperating w/ the NSA as USA-T initially (and incorrectly) indicated raises the concern level on our privacy rights even HIGHER. So HOW has the NSA been obtaining these phone call records? STEALING them? The next question would be, what gives them the right to do that?

You sure yell a lot. You must be a very angry person. I wonder if you kick your dog too?

The authority to obtain records like this has already been posted here and missed by you. That's your problem. I will give you a title and you can look it up:

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act

To use your everyday logic, "technically" they didn't lie, but if you publish something in order to be intentionally misleading or you publish as FACT something that you can't verify (a la Mary Mapes and Dan Rather) then it IS a LIE.

:N

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

You sure yell a lot. You must be a very angry person. I wonder if you kick your dog too?

LOL. Save the personal attacks and trying to project your own personal faults onto others.

The authority to obtain records like this has already been posted here and missed by you. That's your problem. I will give you a title and you can look it up:

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act

I never said that it was ILLEGAL or that the NSA didn't have the "authority", I only questioned HOW the NSA was physically obtaining this data from the phone companies. If in FACT the phone companies are not "in contract with" the NSA to provide this data, how is the NSA physically obtaining this data?? The jist of the story is that these companies are not "willingly cooperating" with the NSA as the original report had implied. Maybe they are "unwillingly" cooperating. Or maybe the NSA is stealing the data behind their backs. The answer to this question remains unanswered.

To use your everyday logic, "technically" they didn't lie, but if you publish something in order to be intentionally misleading or you publish as FACT something that you can't verify (a la Mary Mapes and Dan Rather) then it IS a LIE.

:N

WRONG, try again.

USA Today at that time reported that, according to its sources, AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. all agreed to provide the agency with domestic call records.

 

[MonsterMark]

WRONG, try again.

"USA Today at that time reported that, according to its sources"

I can't wait to start feeding the NYT and the USA Today juicy stuff on the next Dem Administration. Heck, they'll print anything without proof, heck, they'll print anything that is not even the truth if they think it will help them sell one more rag. Pathetic.

 

[fossten]

LOL. Save the personal attacks and trying to project your own personal faults onto others.



I never said that it was ILLEGAL or that the NSA didn't have the "authority", I only questioned HOW the NSA was physically obtaining this data from the phone companies. If in FACT the phone companies are not "in contract with" the NSA to provide this data, how is the NSA physically obtaining this data?? The jist of the story is that these companies are not "willingly cooperating" with the NSA as the original report had implied. Maybe they are "unwillingly" cooperating. Or maybe the NSA is stealing the data behind their backs. The answer to this question remains unanswered.

Read the bold remarks in your own post, and then explain to me (tapdancer) how you didn't just contradict yourself.

*owned*

Typical liberal. Can't even see his own flawed argument.