About a month ago, I read about AT&T’s indiscretions in sharing customer information. I meant to write something about it at the time, but somehow did not get around to it. It’s been simmering in the back of my mind ever since then. Today, when I finally did get around to sitting down and writing my thoughts on this subject, I could hardly find mention of it. When I type in AT&T into the Google news search I come up with a million stories about the death of the payphone. I guess that is also troubling if you are, like thousands of homeless people, without alternative means of communication. It’s one of those things that will hit a middle class person some day when they need to call 911 and their cell phone is dead in the middle of the night when all the businesses are closed, no one is around and there’s not a payphone in sight.
In the mean time, I am highly disturbed by the obscurity of this other AT&T story. It is there if you dig. But this should have caused a much greater stir. AT&T made a deal with the devil, or maybe it was just two devils making a deal together. It turns out that the communications company was, possibly still is, collecting customer data, including phone conversations and emails, for the NSA. They were apparently ordered by President Bush to conduct this spying program, but they forgot to take a look at the Constitution, you know, the part about “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” According to a whistle blower, the NSA had a secret room at the San Francisco offices of AT&T, into which went all Internet traffic. I was never shown a warrant for them to have my communications, were you? And I certainly do not feel secure in my person. This has been going on for sometime. To be honest I am not all that surprised, but why didn’t I hear about it a little sooner. This should be front-page news, along with all the other violations of our constitutional rights this administration has perpetrated. This is surely a sign of what we are in store for in the near future: totalitarian society, in which people are either oblivious, or in denial of that fact. Maybe we are already there.
I should also probably mention my bias with regards to this story. I live in the Bay Area and I am an AT&T customer. I am pissed off at AT&T for betraying my trust, but I am also pissed off that I don’t really have much of a choice when it comes to finding another provider. Effectively AT&T has a monopoly in my neighborhood. When I was shopping around for phone and Internet service, I was repeatedly told, “We don’t carry service in your area.” Only AT&T could connect to my apartment. Well that’s not entirely true. If I made twice as much a year, I might be able to afford Comcast’s service. But essentially I’m being screwed and don’t have much say in the matter. (There’s that voice in the back of my head again saying: You could move out into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and cut contact with the rest of the world.)
Articles to check out regarding AT&T spying issue:
“Definition Changing for People's Privacy.”
“Big Bro chokes on own surveillance data.”
“Judge: Feds Must Release Telecom Records”
“Ex-Worker at AT&T Fights Immunity Bill”
2 comments:
FYI, most telecomes have deals like this with the government, and all cell providers do. In exchange for allowing the government free access...they get, er, something. Comcast recently got nailed for selectively restricting access for their customers in an attempt to fight the bogeyman of "illegal downloading." Verizon openly admits that it turns customer records over to the government without a warrant of any kind.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been tracking the ATT/NSA case since it broke over a year ago; there's a lot of interesting stuff on there about telecoms in general in addition to specifics of the ATT case.
Oh there you go speaking of that "Constitution" thing. Our fearless leader recently informed us that the Constitution was "just a piece of paper."
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