That’s the title of a story in Monday’s Washington Post. Nice to finally know what the government claimed was a “state secret,” and what Congress provided immunity to phone companies to help conceal, was true after all.
In 2006 the ACLU of Vermont was one of 20 ACLU affiliates around the country to ask public utility commissions to investigate whether local telecommunications companies allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on their customers.
The request came following revolutions that the NSA had, without legal authorization, been collecting records of Americans’ phone calls — who was calling whom, on what date and at what time, and how long the call lasted.
The telecommunications companies at first denied they had acquiesced to such spying, citing the policies they are required to adopt to protect customers’ privacy.
Before the investigations could get very far, however, the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in and said the existence — or non-existence — of such a program was a “state secret.” It asked the courts to order a halt to the investigations.
Over time, the government’s effort to block the investigations took on a farcical air.
National intelligence chief Mike McConnell himself confirmed the existence of the spying program in an interview with a Texas newspaper. Telecommunications companies themselves told Congress that they responded to requests for customer phone records.
Finally, under intense pressure from telecommunications companies that feared costly lawsuits, Congress in 2008 granted immunity to the companies — a strong suggestion that a situation outside the law existed.
The Post story details how the FBI for years ignored legal constraints set up to protect American’s civil liberties. Any claims to privacy were pushed aside by spurious claims of terrorism emergencies. “Counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties,” the Post reported.
Read documents concerning the ACLU-Vermont’s complaint to the Vermont Public Service Board regarding violations of phone customers’ privacy.