The NSA's other domestic surveillance program

One thing that has been frustrating about the NSA domestic surveillance issue is that the debate has been framed as a matter of "wiretapping" - which has traditionally meant placing a monitoring device on a specific suspected individual's telephone line. You often hear people defending the program by saying something like: "Hey, if someone's talking on the phone with Al Qaeda, that's their problem - I'm not too worried about the NSA spying on me." However, in addition to conducting surveillance against specific American citizens suspected of communicating with foreign terror groups, the NSA has been monitoring millions of American citizens' phone and electronic communications - even though they haven't been suspected of anything.

A new USA Today story on this second category of domestic surveillance reports that the NSA has been "secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth." [USA Today] The article provides some new details on the progam, and confirms some things the ACLU and other privacy groups had alleged. One interesting facet of the story is that the telecoms are being paid - with taxpayer's dollars - for giving the NSA our personal call records:

The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their "call-detail records," a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.

The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg. [USA Today]

Although the USA Today article focuses on the NSA's monitoring of phone records, and says that the program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations," the full extent of the broader surveillance program is still unclear. In a December 2005 article titled "Wiretaps said to sift all overseas wiretaps," the Boston Globe reported that experts believe the NSA has a "vast data collection and sorting operation" which "captures reams of data from satellites, fiberoptic lines, and Internet switching stations, and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers, and words that have been identified as suspicious." [Boston Globe]

A former AT&T technician says that the company even built secret rooms for the NSA inside its San Francisco switching facility, and at other facilities, through which internet traffic is routed to the agency for surveillance purposes. [Wired News]

Articles:
"NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls" [USA Today]
"Wiretaps said to sift all overseas contacts" [Boston Globe]
"AT&T seeks to hide spy docs" [Wired News]
"US plans massive data sweep" [Christian Science Monitor]

Lawsuits involving the NSA domestic surveillance program:
Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit vs. AT&T [EFF.org]
American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit vs. NSA [ACLU.org]