Fergie's Tech Blog

Money Power vs. The NSA ? Not So Fast...

A UPI newswire article, via PhysOrg.com, reports that:

Outraged that some telecom companies are selling out their customers to the government? Then vote with your wallet, or so argues one activist group. But the seemingly good idea may be rather difficult to follow through.

BuyBlue.org, a California-based Democratic advocacy group that encourages people to buy from businesses that support workers' rights, environmental standards and corporate transparency, pointed out to its proponents that keeping accounts with AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon would be ill-advised if subscribers are concerned about maintaining their privacy from the government.

While AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon have all denied reports that they have abided by the National Security Agency's request to provide calling data of millions of subscribers, many still believe that all three have gone out of their way to work together with the government, rather than protect their clients' interests.

In fact, of the four major U.S. carriers, only Qwest reportedly flatly refused to comply with the NSA's request and refused to hand over the information. Still, changing telephone carriers is not as easy as switching from Coca-Cola to Pepsi, as phone users simply may not have much choice when it comes to avoiding carriers that have allegedly cooperated with the NSA.

For instance, Qwest only serves those in a 14-state region from Arizona north to Wyoming and east to Minnesota. So those on the east and west coasts cannot subscribe to the carrier even if they wanted to.

posted by Fergie @ 5/19/2006 11:37:00 AM