After saying no, Verizon quietly said okay. Verizon now says they gave federal, state and local law enforcement agencies tens of thousands of communication and business records, your records, to be combed through without your knowledge or permission. But they still won't give up the goods on what was actually in the documents.
---"There is an atmosphere of ambiguity which clouds this entire area," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, said in an interview with CNN. "Congress needs to know. The American people need to know what the Bush administration is doing in the name of the American people to its own citizens. And right now we don't know the answers."---
Verizon does claim however that by giving up this information, they were able to help officials catch two child rapist. This for my money, is the easiest way to gain public sympathy. Yes it's great these two were caught this way, but that kind of information has always been available to law enforcement. Verizon gave up 63,700 records, now we know two of them were criminals.
How does this make you feel as a Verizon customer?
Not very good, this should not happen. I think that we really need to protect our rights. I have nothing to hide and they will be really bored viewing my phone records. The fact is our information should be safe and protected by due process = get a warrant, get the records.
Posted by: Matthew J | October 17, 2007 at 07:51 AM
Consider that AT&T and other carriers have and are doing the same thing... doesn't bother me one bit. I would be more concerned if they were giving the data to other businesses for marketing, and I would be concerned if the government (Bush administration or otherwise) were using it for political purposes or to silence critics, etc. etc. rather than going after terrorists.
If they want to listen to my boring conversations with friends about how my day at work was, more power to them, but as an IT guy I can tell you that it's the same thing I get from employees-- do you really sit around watching the web sites I go to?-- when we accuse them of going to various sites. The truth is, I'm way too busy to do that sort of thing... If I were looking for something specific, it doesn't take much time to find it... thousands of records or not... and the rest is just tossed aside.
Posted by: GoodThings2Life | October 17, 2007 at 09:34 AM