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Domestic Call Records Mined for Expansive Pentagon Database Program

USA Today reported that the nation’s three major telecommunications carriers have provided the Pentagon with call records for “tens of millions of Americans.” The paper also published this related editorial: NSA has your phone records; ‘trust us’ isn’t good enough.
Related government documents and news:

  • President Bush Discusses NSA Surveillance Program, May 11, 2006: “We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.”
  • Opening Remarks Of Sen. Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee, Executive Business Meeting, May 11, 2006: “The President concealed the NSA eavesdropping program when he reassured all Americans that when this Administration talks about a wiretap that requires a court-ordered search warrant. We now know that he had been having the NSA engage in warrantless wiretaps Americans since October 2001.”
  • Press release: “In response to the disturbing new information about domestic spying Representative Edward J. Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee and a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to Dennis Hastert speaker of the House of Representatives raising questions about the connection between the reports of NSA phone record data bases and the sudden disappearance of the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act, a bi-partisan bill that was scheduled for consideration on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, May 2, 2006.”
  • Remarks by General Michael V. Hayden, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Former Director of the National Security Agency, Address to the National Press Club, What American Intelligence and Especially the NSA Have Been Doing to Defend the Nation, January 23, 2006.
  • ConyersBlog: Amicus brief filed by 72 Democratic Members of Congress in two cases [ACLU v. NSA and CCR v. Bush] challenging the Bush Administration’s illegal warrantless domestic spying
  • A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology – Illegal NSA Data Mining Highlights Need for Congressional Oversight
  • AP: Congress Demands Phone Records Answers: “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel in pursuit of what had transpired.”
  • AP: Report on NSA Brings Surveillance in Focus
  • NPR: Phone Companies Gave NSA Millions of Call Records
  • Editor & Publisher: White House Won’t Confirm or Deny It Tried to Stop ‘USA Today’ Story
  • Related postings on domestic surveillance program
  • Editor & Publisher, May 19, 2006: Dispute Over ‘USA Today’ NSA Scoop Has Top Journos Buzzing
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