WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Senate committee chairman warned of a "constitutional confrontation" with the Bush administration Wednesday over its domestic surveillance program, threatening to subpoena administration officials or phone company executives in a congressional review.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter publicly complained about the Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with his panel Tuesday and sent a stinging letter to Vice President Dick Cheney after learning Cheney had lobbied other Republicans on his committee without his knowledge.
"I'm not looking for courtesy," the Pennsylvania Republican told CNN. "What I'm looking for is judicial review of wiretaps, which is the tradition in America.
Specter warns of 'confrontation' over NSA hearings
Quote:WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Senate committee chairman warned of a "constitutional confrontation" with the Bush administration Wednesday over its domestic surveillance program, threatening to subpoena administration officials or phone company executives in a congressional review.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter publicly complained about the Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with his panel Tuesday and sent a stinging letter to Vice President Dick Cheney after learning Cheney had lobbied other Republicans on his committee without his knowledge.
"I'm not looking for courtesy," the Pennsylvania Republican told CNN. "What I'm looking for is judicial review of wiretaps, which is the tradition in America.
Sen. Specter threatens to cut off funding for secret wiretaps
Quote:WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday he is considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush administration's secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from the White House.
Senator Specter:
Stop talking about it and DO IT!
Congress may consider mandatory ISP snooping
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: April 28, 2006, 5:06 PM PDT
Tell us what you think about this storyTalkBack E-mail this story to a friendE-mail View this story formatted for printingPrint
It didn't take long for the idea of forcing Internet providers to retain records of their users' activities to gain traction in the U.S. Congress.
Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, gave a speech saying that data retention by Internet service providers is an "issue that must be addressed." Child pornography investigations have been "hampered" because data may be routinely deleted, Gonzales warned.
Now, in a demonstration of bipartisan unity, a Democratic member of the Congressional Internet Caucus is preparing to introduce an amendment--perhaps during a U.S. House of Representatives floor vote next week--that would make such data deletion illegal.
Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal (click for PDF) says that any Internet service that "enables users to access content" must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user's account was closed.
It's not clear whether that requirement would be limited only to e-mail providers and Internet providers such as DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable modem services. An expansive reading of DeGette's measure would require every Web site to retain those records. (Details would be left to the Federal Communications Commission.)
DeGette Rep. Diana Rep. Diana DeGette
"We're still addressing some of the issues, and we will have those issues or answers before we introduce this as either an amendment or a standalone bill," Brandon MacGillis, a spokesman for DeGette, said in an interview on Friday.
CNET News.com was the first to report last June that the Justice Department was quietly shopping around the idea of legally required data retention. In a move that may have led to broader interest inside the United States, the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.
U.S. politicians began talking publicly about mandatory data retention during a series of House of Representatives hearings on child pornography and in speeches, News.com reported earlier this month. Legislation similar to DeGette's has been circulating in the Colorado legislature, and another hearing on child exploitation is planned for next Wednesday.
The Bush administration's current position is an abrupt reversal of its previous long-held belief that data retention is unnecessary and imposes an unacceptable burden on Internet providers. In 2001, the Bush administration expressed (click for PDF) "serious reservations about broad mandatory data retention regimes."
DeGette said in a statement that her amendment was necessary because: "America is the No. 1 global consumer of child pornography, the No. 2 producer. This is a plague we had nearly wiped out in the seventies, and sadly the Internet, an entity that we practically worship for all the great things it has brought to us, is being used to commit a crime against humanity."
For their part, Internet providers say they have a long history of helping law enforcement in child porn cases and point out that two federal laws already require them to cooperate. It's also unclear that investigations are really being hindered, according to Kate Dean, director of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association.
MacGillis, a spokesman for DeGette, said his boss is likely to introduce her data retention proposal as a standalone measure or as an amendment to a broad telecommunications bill that's moving rapidly through the House.
The bill (click for PDF)--best known for a debate this week over its Net neutrality sections--was approved by a House committee on Thursday and is expected to receive a floor vote next week. (DeGette had considered adding it as an amendment during the committee vote but decided against it at the last minute.)
"Our main concern on the bill is privacy, protecting the privacy of everyone out there on the Internet, but also retention of those records so law enforcement officials will have access to them, so we just need to really tinker with the language," MacGillis said.
Child porn as surveillance excuse?
Critics of DeGette's proposal have said that, while the justification for Internet surveillance might be protecting children, the data would be accessible to any local or state law enforcement official investigating anything from drug possession to tax evasion. In addition, the one-year retention is a minimum; the FCC would receive the authority to require Internet companies to keep records "for not less than one year after a subscriber ceases to subscribe to such services."
Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, said: "This is an unrestricted grant of authority to the FCC to require surveillance."
In other news:
* Ma Bell gets ready for IPTV close-up
* Forget the glasses-- 3D TV is ready now
* Putting Vista to the test
* News.com Extra: College kids say iPods more popular than beer
* Video: Al-Qaida leader killed
"The FCC would be able to tell Internet service providers to monitor our e-mails, monitor our Web surfing, monitor what we post on blogs or chat rooms, and everything else under the sun," said Harper, a member of the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. "We're seeing a kind of hysteria reminiscent of the McMartin case. The result will be privacy that goes away and doesn't come back when the foolishness is exposed."
The McMartin case was probably the most extreme example of the hysteria over "Satanic ritual abuse"--a widespread scare in the 1980s that children were molested, murdered and tortured, even though no evidence was found. In the McMartin preschool case, a family was falsely accused of Satanic activities and the charges were eventually dropped.
At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud prevention or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a practice called data preservation.
A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn is charged with forwarding that report to the appropriate police agency.
ACLU Tries to Stop Warrantless Wiretapping
Jun 12 6:10 AM US/Eastern
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By SARAH KARUSH
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT
Critics of the government's domestic surveillance program claim it violates the rights of free speech and privacy. The Bush administration says it is necessary and legal. Both sides were due in court Monday to argue the constitutionality of the program. The American Civil Liberties Union has asked for an immediate halt to the warrantless wiretapping program.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was to hear the case brought by the ACLU against the National Security Agency. The Bush administration has asked Taylor to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the litigation would jeopardize state secrets.
But Taylor said she would first hear arguments on the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, despite the government's assertion that no court can consider the issues.
The administration has acknowledged eavesdropping on Americans' international communications without first seeking court approval. President Bush has said the eavesdropping is legal because of a congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism.
The parties in the ACLU lawsuit, who include journalists, scholars and lawyers, say the program has hampered their ability to do their jobs because it has made international contacts, such as sources and potential witnesses, wary of sharing information over the phone.
Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said the administration's arguments in defense of the program don't square with the Constitution.
"The framers never intended to give the president the power to ignore the laws of Congress even during wartime and emergencies," she said last week during a conference call with reporters.
She said no state secrets need to be revealed to litigate the case because the administration has already acknowledged the program exists. The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a similar lawsuit on the eavesdropping in federal court in New York.
Now, this gets even more interesting. While the House passed one bill that would address this issue, a second piece of legislation was due to be debated on the House floor on the same day that US Today revealed that Bush was using AT&T and other phone companies to spy on you. That day the House legislation suddenly disappeared and never was to be seen again. No one knows how it disappeared or who pulled it (though it had to be a Republican, like Denny Hastert, since they control the House). And even more interesting, for some unexplained reason the Senate legislation has gone nowhere. Bill Frist just won't move it.
Now that we know the Bush administration has been skirting the law by buying your phone records without the necessary court order, it's looking more and more interesting that the Republicans in Congress seem to be sitting on legislation that would protect your privacy and stop this abuse of privacy from continuing.
Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?
Salon exclusive: Two former AT&T employees say the telecom giant has maintained a secret, highly secure room in St. Louis since 2002. Intelligence experts say it bears the earmarks of a National Security Agency operation.
By Kim Zetter
Jun. 21, 2006 | In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center.
In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T's facility in Bridgeton. The room's tight security includes a biometric "mantrap" or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and fingerprint scanners. The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees working inside the room were "monitoring network traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency."
The details provided by the two former workers about the Bridgeton room bear the distinctive earmarks of an operation run by the National Security Agency, according to two intelligence experts with extensive knowledge of the NSA and its operations. In addition to the room's high-tech security, those intelligence experts told Salon, the exhaustive vetting process AT&T workers were put through before being granted top-secret security clearance points to the NSA, an agency known as much for its intense secrecy as its technological sophistication.
"It was very hush-hush," said one of the former AT&T workers. "We were told there was going to be some government personnel working in that room. We were told, 'Do not try to speak to them. Do not hamper their work. Do not impede anything that they're doing.'"
The importance of the Bridgeton facility is its role in managing the "common backbone" for all of AT&T's Internet operations. According to one of the former workers, Bridgeton serves as the technical command center from which the company manages all the routers and circuits carrying the company's domestic and international Internet traffic. Therefore, Bridgeton could be instrumental for conducting surveillance or collecting data.
If the NSA is using the secret room, it would appear to bolster recent allegations that the agency has been conducting broad and possibly illegal domestic surveillance and data collection operations authorized by the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. AT&T's Bridgeton location would give the NSA potential access to an enormous amount of Internet data -- currently, the telecom giant controls approximately one-third of all bandwidth carrying Internet traffic to homes and businesses across the United States.
The nature of the government operation using the Bridgeton room remains unknown, and could be legal. Aside from surveillance or data collection, the room could conceivably house a federal law enforcement operation, a classified research project, or some other unknown government operation.
The former workers, both of whom were approached by and spoke separately to Salon, asked to remain anonymous because they still work in the telecommunications industry. They both left the company in good standing. Neither worked inside the secured room or has access to classified information. One worked in AT&T's broadband division until 2003. The other asked to be identified only as a network technician, and worked at Bridgeton for about three years.
The disclosure of the room in Bridgeton follows assertions made earlier this year by a former AT&T worker in California, Mark Klein, who revealed that the company had installed a secret room in a San Francisco facility and reconfigured its circuits, allegedly to help collect data for use by the government. In detailed documents he provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Klein also alleged there were other secret rooms at AT&T facilities in other U.S. cities.
NSA expert Matthew Aid, who has spent the last decade researching a forthcoming three-volume history of the agency, said of the Bridgeton room: "I'm not a betting man, but if I had to plunk $100 down, I'd say it's safe that it's NSA." Aid told Salon he believes the secret room is likely part of "what is obviously a much larger operation, or series of interrelated operations" combining foreign intelligence gathering with domestic eavesdropping and data collection.
"You're talking about a backbone for computer communications, and that's NSA," Russ Tice, a former high-level NSA intelligence officer, told Salon. Tice, a 20-year veteran of multiple U.S. intelligence agencies, worked for the NSA until spring 2005. "Whatever is happening there with the security you're talking about is a whole lot more closely held than what's going on with the Klein case" in San Francisco, he said. (The San Francisco room is secured only by a special combination lock, according to the Klein documents.)
Tice added that for an operation requiring access to routers and gateways, "the obvious place to do it is right at the source."
In a statement provided to Salon, NSA spokesman Don Weber said: "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues as it would give those wishing to do harm to the United States insight that could potentially place Americans in danger; therefore, we have no information to provide. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law."
Since last December, news reports have asserted that the NSA has conducted warrantless spying on the phone and e-mail communications of thousands of people inside the U.S., and has been secretly collecting the phone call records of millions of Americans, using data provided by major telecommunications companies, including AT&T. Such operations would represent a fundamental shift in the NSA's secretive mission, which over the last three decades is widely understood to have focused exclusively on collecting signals intelligence from abroad.
The reported operations have sparked fierce protest by lawmakers and civil liberties advocates, and have raised fundamental questions about the legality of Bush administration policies, including their consequences for the privacy rights of Americans. The Bush administration has acknowledged the use of domestic surveillance operations since Sept. 11, 2001, but maintains they are conducted within the legal authority of the presidency. Several cases challenging the legality of the alleged spying operations are now pending in federal court, including suits against the federal government, and AT&T, among other telecom companies.
In a statement provided to Salon, AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp said: "If and when AT&T is asked by government agencies for help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions. Beyond that, we can't comment on matters of national security."
According to the two former AT&T workers and the Klein documents, the room in the pivotal Bridgeton facility was set up several months before the room in San Francisco. According to the Klein documents, the work order for the San Francisco room came from Bridgeton, suggesting that Bridgeton has a more integral role in operations using the secured rooms.
The company's Bridgeton network operations center, where approximately 100 people work, is located inside a one-story brick building with a small two-story addition connected to it. The building shares a parking lot with a commercial business and is near an interstate highway.
According to the two former workers, the secret room is an internal structure measuring roughly 20 feet by 40 feet, and was previously used by employees of the company's WorldNet division. In spring 2002, they said, the company moved WorldNet employees to a different part of the building and sealed up the room, plastering over the window openings and installing steel double doors with no handles for moving equipment in and out of the room. The company then installed the high-tech mantrap, which has opaque Plexiglas-like doors that prevent anyone outside the room from seeing clearly into the mantrap chamber, or the room beyond it. Both former workers say the mantrap drew attention from employees for being so high-tech.
Telecom companies commonly use mantraps to secure data storage facilities, but they are typically less sophisticated, requiring only a swipe card to pass through. The high-tech mantrap in Bridgeton seems unusual because it is located in an otherwise low-key, small office building. Tice said it indicates "something going on that's very important, because you're talking about an awful lot of money" to pay for such security measures.
The vetting process for AT&T workers granted access to the room also points to the NSA, according to Tice and Aid.
The former network technician said he knows at least three AT&T employees who have been working in the room since 2002. "It took them six months to get the top-security clearance for the guys," the network technician said. "Although they work for AT&T, they're actually doing a job for the government." He said that each of them underwent extensive background checks before starting their jobs in the room. The vetting process included multiple polygraph tests, employment history reviews, and interviews with neighbors and school instructors, going as far back as elementary school.
Aid said that type of vetting is precisely the kind NSA personnel who receive top-secret SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance go through. "Everybody who works at NSA has an SCI clearance," said Aid.
It's possible the Bridgeton room is being used for a federal law enforcement operation. According to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, telecom companies are required to assist law enforcement officials who have legal authorization to conduct electronic surveillance, either in pursuit of criminal suspects or for the protection of national security. The companies must design or modify their systems to make such surveillance possible, essentially by making them wiretap-ready.
The FBI is the primary federal agency that tracks and apprehends terrorist suspects within the U.S. Yet, there are several indications that the Bridgeton room does not involve the FBI.
"The FBI, which is probably the least technical agency in the U.S. government, doesn't use mantraps," Aid said. "But virtually every area of the NSA's buildings that contain sensitive operations require you to go through a mantrap with retinal and fingerprint scanners. All of the sensitive offices in NSA buildings have them." The description of the opaque Plexiglas-like doors in Bridgeton, Aid said, indicates that the doors are likely infused with Kevlar for bulletproofing -- another signature measure that he said is used to secure NSA facilities: "You could be inside and you can't kick your way out. You can't shoot your way out. Even if you put plastique explosives, all you could do is blow a very small hole in that opaque glass."
Jameel Jaffer, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security program, said it is unlikely that the FBI would set up an ongoing technical operation -- in this case, for several years running -- inside a room of a telecommunications company. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed by Congress in 1978, requires law enforcement officials to obtain warrants from a secret federal court for domestic surveillance operations involving the protection of national security. If the FBI (or another federal agency) wanted data, it would more likely be targeting a specific individual or set of individuals suspected of engaging in criminal or terrorist activities. The agency would obtain a warrant and then call AT&T, or show up in person with the warrant and ask for the wiretap to be engaged. According to Jaffer, the FBI, NSA or any other federal agency could also legally tap into communications data under federal guidelines using technical means that would not require technical assistance of a telecom company.
In an e-mail statement to Salon, FBI spokesperson Paul Bresson said: "The FBI does not confirm whether or not we are involved in an alleged ongoing operational activity. In all cases, FBI operations are conducted in strict accordance with established Department of Justice guidelines, FBI policy, and the law."
Rather than specifically targeted surveillance, it is also possible that the Bridgeton room is being used for a classified government project, such as data mining, with which the Pentagon has experimented in the past. Data mining uses automated methods to search through large volumes of data, looking for patterns that might help identify terrorist suspects, for example. According to Tice, private sector employees who work on classified government projects for the NSA are required to undergo the same kind of top-secret security clearance that AT&T workers in the Bridgeton room underwent.
According to the former network technician, all three AT&T employees he knows who work inside the room have network technician and administration backgrounds -- not research backgrounds -- suggesting that those workers are only conducting maintenance or technical operations inside the room.
Furthermore, Tice said it is much more likely that any classified project using data collected via a corporate facility would take place in separate facilities: "The information that you garner from something like a room siphoning information and filtering it would be sent to some place where you'd have people thinking about what to do with that data," he said.
Dave Farber, a respected computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission, also said it is likely that data collected in a facility like the Bridgeton center would be used elsewhere, once the facility is set up to divert the data. "If I own the routers, I can put code in there to have them monitor for certain data. That's not a particularly difficult job," said Farber, who is considered one of the pioneers of Internet architecture. Farber said that "packets" of data can essentially be copied and then sent to some other location for use. "Most of the problems would have to do with keeping your staff from knowing too much about it."
According to the former network technician, workers at Bridgeton, at the direction of government officials, could conceivably collect data using any AT&T router around the country, which he says number between 1,500 and 2,000. To do so, the company would need to install a wiretap-like device at select locations for "sniffing" the desired data. That could explain the purpose of the San Francisco room divulged by Klein, as well as the secret rooms he alleged existed at AT&T facilities in other U.S. cities.
"The network sniffer with the right software can capture anything," the former network technician said. "You can get people's e-mail, VoIP phone calls, [calls made over the Internet] -- even passwords and credit card transactions -- as long as you have the right software to decrypt that."
In theory, surveillance involving Internet communications can be executed legally under federal law. "But with most of these things," Farber said, "the problem is that it just takes one small step to make it illegal."
-- By Kim Zetter
Copyright ©2006 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.
AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours
- David Lazarus
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.
The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.
Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service -- a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers' recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.
The company's policy overhaul follows recent reports that AT&T was one of several leading telecom providers that allowed the National Security Agency warrantless access to its voice and data networks as part of the Bush administration's war on terror.
"They're obviously trying to avoid a hornet's nest of consumer-protection lawsuits," said Chris Hoofnagle, a San Francisco privacy consultant and former senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"They've written this new policy so broadly that they've given themselves maximum flexibility when it comes to disclosing customers' records," he said.
AT&T is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.
AT&T is also believed to have participated in President Bush's acknowledged domestic spying program, in which the NSA was given warrantless access to U.S. citizens' phone calls.
AT&T said in a statement last month that it "has a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and that "our customers expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy."
But the company also asserted that it has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation."
Under its former privacy policy, introduced in September 2004, AT&T said it might use customer's data "to respond to subpoenas, court orders or other legal process, to the extent required and/or permitted by law."
The new version, which is specifically for Internet and video customers, is much more explicit about the company's right to cooperate with government agencies in any security-related matters -- and AT&T's belief that customers' data belongs to the company, not customers.
"While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," the new policy declares. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
It says the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process," omitting the earlier language about such processes being "required and/or permitted by law."
The new policy states that AT&T "may also use your information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud (or) situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person" -- conditions that would appear to embrace any terror-related circumstance.
Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant, said it seems clear that AT&T has substantially modified its privacy policy in light of revelations about the government's domestic spying program.
"It's obvious that they are trying to stretch their blanket pretty tightly to cover as many exposed bits as possible," he said.
Gail Hillebrand, a staff attorney at Consumers Union in San Francisco, said the declaration that AT&T owns customers' data represents the most significant departure from the company's previous policy.
"It creates the impression that they can do whatever they want," she said. "This is the real heart of AT&T's new policy and is a pretty fundamental difference from how most customers probably see things."
John Britton, an AT&T spokesman, denied that the updated privacy policy marks a shift in the company's approach to customers' info.
"We don't see this as anything new," he said. "Our goal was to make the policy easier to read and easier for customers to understand."
He acknowledged that there was no explicit requirement in the past that customers accept the privacy policy as a condition for service. And he acknowledged that the 2004 policy said nothing about customers' data being owned by AT&T.
But Britton insisted that these elements essentially could be found between the lines of the former policy.
"There were many things that were implied in the last policy." He said. "We're just clarifying the last policy."
AT&T's new privacy policy is the first to include the company's video service. AT&T says it's spending $4.6 billion to roll out TV programming to 19 million homes nationwide.
The policy refers to two AT&T video services -- Homezone and U-verse. Homezone is AT&T's satellite TV service, offered in conjunction with Dish Network, and U-verse is the new cablelike video service delivered over phone lines.
In a section on "usage information," the privacy policy says AT&T will collect "information about viewing, game, recording and other navigation choices that you and those in your household make when using Homezone or AT&T U-verse TV Services."
The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 stipulates that cable and satellite companies can't collect or disclose information about customers' viewing habits.
The law is silent on video services offered by phone companies via the Internet, basically because legislators never anticipated such technology would be available.
AT&T's Britton said the 1984 law doesn't apply to his company's video service because AT&T isn't a cable provider. "We are not building a cable TV network," he said. "We're building an Internet protocol television network."
But Andrew Johnson, a spokesman for cable heavyweight Comcast, disputed this perspective.
"Video is video is video," he said. "If you're delivering programming over a telecommunications network to a TV set, all rules need to be the same."
AT&T's new and former privacy policies both state that "conducting business ethically and ensuring privacy is critical to maintaining the public's trust and achieving success in a dynamic and competitive business climate."
Both also state that "privacy responsibility" extends "to the privacy of conversations and to the flow of information in data form." As such, both say that "the trust of our customers necessitates vigilant, responsible privacy protections."
The 2004 policy, though, went one step further. It said AT&T realizes "that privacy is an important issue for our customers and members."
The new policy makes no such acknowledgment.
David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Send tips or feedback to [email protected].
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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/21/BUG9VJHB9C1.DTL
More evidence of illegal spying crops up all the time.
Cycloptichorn
A little CYA being done by ATT. My advice would be to stop doing business with this company immediately.
Cycloptichorn
Well, not exactly; it is the practice of declaring that all data which passes through their system is 'their' property.
Imagine if the postal service (or fedex, for a private entity) declared that all letters and packages sent through them constituted 'their' property. I would advise stopping doing business with them as well.
Cycloptichorn
It's the same thing; Tico no matter if they disclose data of their customers "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process" or just to give to some news paper without the customers permission. The point is that AT&T is declaring the information which one would assume to be confidential to be their property which does indeed claim they own the data. If something is your property you can do with it what you wish regardless of reason or purpose.
And why not? It is essentially a record of the things that one does in private, on the phone.
I don't expect the postal service to keep records of where I send packages. Why should they? It isn't any of their business, at all. It is my private business who I send a package to, through a service provided by the government.
Why does this 'seem reasonable' to you, anyways? You don't believe that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy?
Cycloptichorn
