Say Thanks to Qwest!
Website created by Richard Kastelein
Text by Chris Floyd and Richard Kastelein
It’s not often these days that we have occasion to laud corporate behavior, but the stance taken by the telecom Qwest in resisting the Bush Administration’s covert program to ensnare every single American citizen in a vast web of telephone surveillance deserves our thanks.
Every other telecom sold out the privacy of its customers – literally so, taking money to turn over their phone records to the National Security Agency – but Qwest alone insisted on having a court order before complying with Bush’s unprecedented and “indefensible” (as Newt Gingrich put it) invasion of Americans’ personal lives and business affairs.
Bush’s domestic spies refused to supply any formal legal justification whatsoever for their extraordinary request, beyond the implied “plenary powers” of the “Commander-in-Chief”: the novel – and equally indefensible — doctrine that the Administration had adopted as the basis of what is effectively a presidential dictatorship, beyond the reach of law.
It is, of course, a sad commentary on our times that Qwest should be praised so highly for merely obeying the law of the land. But this is what we’ve come to. Our leaders are lawless, and it is now up to every citizen – including corporate citizens – to embody and enact the laws and values of the Republic, on our own, until Constitutional government can be restored.
One simple act we can take is to support those who take a public stand for the law. You can say thanks to Qwest by posting a comment below (you don’t need to join, or leave an email or website to post – just scroll down and hit the comments link).
And pass this man an email as well:
Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
David J. Heller
email: Corporate.Compliance@qwest.com
Click here to visit Qwest website
USA Today first broke the story, and now we all know: the National Security Agency has been collecting the private phone records of tens of millions of American citizens since 2001, gathering the tainted bounty of this sinister harvest into “the largest data base ever assembled in the world,” as one insider put it. Under the direction of General Michael V. Hayden — the military spymaster now nominated to head the CIA — the NSA carried out this massive “black op” against the American people in total secrecy, without the court orders clearly required to obtain this information. So how did Hayden and his creepy peepers into America’s privacy get hold of the phone records?
Simple: the major U.S. telecommunications corporations — all but one — turned them over to the government, for money — your money. That’s right: the Bush Administration used your tax dollars to pay the Big Telecoms to hand over your private phone records.
…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. With that, the NSA’s domestic program began in earnest.
If you are among the multitudes who signed up, in good faith, to BellSouth, AT&T or Verizon, expecting your privacy to be protected, as required by laws going back more than seven decades, the record of every phone call you have made in the last four-and-a-half years is now in the hands of a secret government program operating without any genuine oversight or restrictions against abuse. This includes the call records of every government or corporate whistleblower, every investigative journalist digging up government corruption, every political opponent of the Administration’s policies. Imagine how useful it would be for the Bush Administration to type in the name of, say, Seymour Hersh, and find out every government insider he’s talked to on the phone for the past four years?
Rarely has such a powerful, all-pervasive tool for repression been placed in the hands of a government; and rarely has there a been a government which has proven itself less trustworthy to hold such power without abusing it.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Bush Administration decided to ignore the existing laws governing surveillance, in particular the special secret courts set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. This urge to bypass FISA is not surprising; the secret courts – which had almost never refused a single request for surveillance of terrorst or espionage suspects – had been created in response to widespread government spying on citizens in for decades, a mania for illicit intrusion that reached its height under the disgraced president Richard Nixon.
Two of the greatest proponents of these assaults on civil liberties were high-ranking minions in the Nixon Administration: Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. After Nixon’s ignominious departure, with Congress finally acting to restrain the manifold abuses of the national security system, Cheney and Rumsfeld – now Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary for Gerald Ford – buried investigations of a covert telecommunications spy program remarkably similar to the current NSA scheme under the butt-covering rubric of “executive privilege.” The original FISA restrictions were, in fact, aimed directly at serial abusers of power like Cheney and Rumsfeld. It is no wonder that they discarded these restrictions at the first opportunity once they had returned in glory to the White House.
George W. Bush gave his full authority to the NSA program, whose ostensible purpose is to “data-mine” blind phone numbers — with no names or content of the calls divulged — in search of connections between suspected terrorists. Hayden in turn delegated the responsibility to lower-echelon shift supervisors – as in the Watergate days – further diluting the already soup-thin oversight of the operation. For years, it has been carried out in total secrecy; there is simply no way of knowing how they have used – or abused – this massive database, or what other information, such as call content, they have obtained from the phone companies, or by other means.
The Bush Administration pointedly refrained from using any existing legal mechanism in requesting the call records, when it could have very easily done so and doubtless obtained all the information it sought for the data-mining program. In the absence of any other credible explanation – beyond bland assertions of “trust us, it’s all legal” – we are certainly justified in suspecting that the Administration had purposes for the program which lay outside the scope of FISA or any other law governing domestic surveillance.
But the major telecoms were evidently unconcerned about the lack of legality. Once the NSA dangled a bit of long green in their faces, they passed over the call records without a by your leave. Only Qwest – the often beleaguered telecom with a checkered past and an uncertain legal future hanging over its chief – refused to cooperate without the sensible expedient of a court order. After all, that was the law, and had been since the 1930s. There is no doubt that Qwest, given the appeals to patriotism and national security in the tumultuous days after 9/11, would have willingly complied – if the request had been made in a legal manner.
Qwest’s stand is even more remarkable given the heavy pressure applied by Bush team.
…Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies.
It also tried appealing to Qwest’s patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest’s refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.
In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest’s foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government.
Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Aside from concerns over legality, morality and liberty, the very utility of the NSA program has also been called into question. The blunderbuss approach of harvesting millions upon millions of phone records to be churned by supercomputers seems wildly at odds with the kind of careful, precise human intelligence and investigative work required to pinpoint the deliberately scattered, deeply buried, small networks of actual terrorists out there. And the already massive extent of the program is evidently just the beginning.
It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.
…The usefulness of the NSA’s domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes.
“Other purposes” is the operative phrase here. Because “data-mining” for terrorists in giant phone record banks is like trying to find microscopic needles in an ever-growing haystack. It is, in a word, impossible, according to expert to Bruce Schneier from Wired Magazine.
This unrealistically accurate system will generate 1 billion false alarms for every real terrorist plot it uncovers. Every day of every year, the police will have to investigate 27 million potential plots in order to find the one real terrorist plot per month.
Raise that false-positive accuracy to an absurd 99.9999 percent and you’re still chasing 2,750 false alarms per day — but that will inevitably raise your false negatives, and you’re going to miss some of those 10 real plots.
This isn’t anything new. In statistics, it’s called the “base rate fallacy,” and it applies in other domains as well. For example, even highly accurate medical tests are useless as diagnostic tools if the incidence of the disease is rare in the general population.
Terrorist attacks are also rare, any “test” is going to result in an endless stream of false alarms. This is exactly the sort of thing we saw with the NSA’s eavesdropping program: the New York Times reported that the computers spat out thousands of tips per month.
Every one of them turned out to be a false alarm. And the cost was enormous — not just for the FBI agents running around chasing dead-end leads instead of doing things that might actually make us safer, but also the cost in civil liberties.
The fundamental freedoms that make our country the envy of the world are valuable, and not something that we should throw away lightly.
So again, we are left with the question: What is the NSA program really about? Who are they really spying on? Remember, we are dealing with an Administration that has already declared – in open court, in Congressional testimony, in internal memos, in executive orders and “presidential signing statements” – that the president has the “inherent authority” as Commander-in-Chief during “wartime” to ignore or reinterpret any law that might restrict his “plenary powers.” We have seen this pernicious doctrine in action for years: it underlies the use of torture throughout the global system of detention centers, secret prisons and the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay that Bush has set up; it underlies Bush’s outrageous claim that he can apprehend anyone on earth and hold them indefinitely, without charges or trial, simply by declaring them, on his own authority, an “enemy combatant,” a “terrorist” or even a “suspected terrorist.”
(For example, the Bush Administration has declared in open court that the U.S. government would be justified in capturing and holding a “little old lady in Switzerland” if she unwittingly gave money to a charity used as a front by terrorists. Deputy Attorney General Brian Boyle made the assertion in a hearing on Dec. 1, 2004, adding the chilling words: “Someone’s intention is clearly not a factor that would disable detention.” This admittedly innocent little old lady would then be subjected to a military tribunal, which alone would decide “whether to believe her and release her” – or keep her locked up.)
So we are dealing with an Administration that openly admits that innocent people can be “legimately” swept up in its vast covert nets and subjected to indefinite imprisonment at the mercy of a military tribunal. And we are supposed to believe that these same officials, willing to go to such draconian lengths, are acting with scrupulous circumspection when handling the private phone records of millions of American citizens? We are supposed to believe they are using this gargantuan NSA program solely to ferret out a few terrorists?
…With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans.
Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA’s domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.
The NSA phone-spy program, which we are now told is only the “tip of the iceberg”, is designed to identify social networks – of any kind. It is far too large to have been created solely to find a few terrorists. It beggars belief – and belies the evidence of the Administration’s behavior over the past five years – to assume that other “social networks” are not also being targeted by the program: Democrats and other political opponents, internal dissidents, activist groups, journalists…basically anyone who is against Bush and the way he is fighting his self-declared, never-ending “War on Terror.”
But the dictatorial powers being claimed under the aegis of this “War” are not new measures in response to an unprecedented emergency – they are old abuses long championed by the most powerful elements in the Bush Administration. These powers of surveillance, secrecy and repression of dissent were being systematically restored by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld junta long before 9/11.
In the end, the NSA program is not about “national security” or fighting terrorists. It is just another front in a long-running war against the liberties of the American people: freedoms which are despised and feared by elites who believe that their power and privilege are the only genuine “national interests.”
Who knows? Tomorrow we may see Qwest in collusion with these elites on some other front. But right now, in this fight, they have been a champion of liberty and deserve our thanks. So go show them some love. But in the words of the late, great Johnny Cash: keep your eyes wide open all the time.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Good job guys, it’s comforting to know there is still some ethical backbone in this world of multiple and overlapping interests.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Great to know my company has the ethics to know right from wrong!
May 16th, 2006 at 11:46 am
As a customer who has considered going only with a cell phone, this gives me food for thought. I may have to become a bigger customer of Qwest. All this change of attitude about Qwest is due to their stance on the NSA snooping.
I now have great respect for Qwest!
May 16th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Thank you, thank you. If more corporations protected our privacy we could go back to feeling secure again in our own homes. (and our own country too) It is a crime that anyone can get all possible records about us. This should be stopped.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Thanks guys! Finally the terrorists have a company they can rely on!
May 16th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Rule of law…what does this mean? I know for absolutely sure that when it is applied to my everday life, that there are few ambiguities; however when it comes to our President, it seems to mean nothing at all. There is a FISA court Mr. President….use it. If you cannot secure subpoenas, well then you are SOL.
My Constitutional rights do not cease to exist because it makes things easier for the government to catch terrorists. Hell if we wanted to makes things easier for the government in this ‘war on terrorism’, let’s just get rid of this pesky Constitution all together. I bet we could catch all sorts of terrorists, along with adulterers, cheats, liars, and hypocrites. Perhaps the phone transcripts of those who aren’t attending a Christian church regularly should be reviewed especially close as well. While we are at it, maybe even have everyone live in a little box like milkfed veal too, until the value of our physical self is greater than the value of our human spirit, then it’s off to the processing plant. After all, it’s for the good of everyone, right? It’s effective and efficient, right?
As a society, where do we draw the line of individual liberty versus the good of our country? Our President seems to think that he and his administration know best where to draw this line, and that somehow he can simply disregard the parts that get in his way. I however, know that this line has already been set by our founding Fathers, our legislative branch, and our judicial system. No offense Mr. President, but you are not above the law. In fact, if it was up to me, you would be charged with treason this very day, because you swore to uphold our Constitution, but instead you have actively engaged in activities which circumvent it; from this data collection without court approval, to indefinite detention of the accused without legal representation.
Kudos however goes to Qwest for understanding the simple fact that my telecom usage information is not public domain without a court order…period. Now if our President would like to become a judge instead, well then let’s have him start in traffic court first, then work his way up the ranks. Oh but wait, maybe that criminal record (DUI), might get in the way of that…I guess it’s back to the Texas Rangers then, or some other place where Daddies clout and connections will make things all better…
Again, thank you Qwest for protecting my information from a President and administration who beleive Constitutional laws are quaint artifacts of a bygone era. Because of your steasfast commitment to the rule of law, I will continue to do business with you. Oh, and by the way, can we work on this DSL availability in my neighborhood issue now?
May 16th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Awesome! Thanks for standing up for the little guy and fighting the opening of this pandora’s box. The BushCo “trust us” policy will not protect us. “Trust us?” …as Larry the Cable Guy said, “It’s pronounced, ‘Baloney!’ “
May 16th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
As a Qwest employee, we are REQUIRED to read and acknowledge an Employee Code of Conduct on a yearly basis. This Code of Conduct includes customer records and phone call data and the fact that under NO circumstances do you talk about anything related to a customer without a court order. Anyone who violates this code can be terminated immediately. This is not only a Qwest requirement, it’s the LAW. The fact is that the Bush Administration expected us to break a law that was enacted back in the 1930′s.
May 16th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I never would have dreamed that the defender of our civil rights would be a telecom. Thank you, Quest, for having the courage to keep my private life private. You are restoring my faith in American institutions, which has been badly shaken by the out-of-control regime.
May 16th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Thank you Qwest. Why you may ask. Qwest took a real risk in the fight to keep our freedom. They should be remembered in history. This should be the turning point. Really, I would hope that the history books remember Qwest as the only american phone company with the guts to stand up for the constitution.
Chris Moats
May 16th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Thank you Qwest for respecting the rights of American citizens, and telling Big Government and George Bush to mind their own business.
May 16th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
thank you for not being involved in this NSA project.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Thank you Qwest for respecting our Constitutional Right to privacy and not breaking to this current administration and their shady ways. I work for Corporate America and, at times, been on conference calls that contained confidential company information. We are way past the time to stand up to this corrupt administration. I’m happy to have been an associate of Qwest.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Thank you for not assisting the Administration in its further trampling of our freedoms. Job well done!
May 16th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Thank you for sticking to the principles. I will be looking into switching my service provider.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
I lost a lot of money on your stock, like a lot of people did, and your refusal to go along with the Bush administration’s request goes some way toward molifies my feelings toward you to some considerable degree. You have done a service to our country. Thanks.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Thank you Qwest.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
THANK YOU!
May 16th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Thank you to the Board of Directors and management of Qwest for following the law and not bowing the Bush Administration. Too often civil liberties are the first thing to go when the country is threatened. The greater threat is the administration currently in power. As a user of your phone service, I am glad my telecom stood up to the demands of an unaccountable government agency. Thanks again.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Just called t-mobile and signed up for their family plan, transferring my qwest number in the process. Dropping qwest from my home will save me $400 a year!
May 16th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Thank you for protecting our privacy rights and for standing up for the rights of Americans.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Instead of being “applauded” you should be ASHAMED !!!
Why are people so paranoid? Keep your nose clean and you have NOTHING to worry about, period!!!!!! Believe me, the Government could care less that Mary and Jane are planning a picnic this weekend.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Thank you for doing the right thing and standing up for your customer’s rights.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Thank you for helping keep safe the rights of all Americans to be free of government intrusion.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Sure wish Qwest had service here in TN. I contacted Verizon and told them I wanted a public apology and a promise to never monitor cell phone calls again without a warrant. They practically denied that they are doing so! Unfortunately, the wireless options in my area are minimal. I feel violated. We can never trust wireless carriers again. Bush is leading the US into a Fascist state reminisent of Nazi Germany. When will Americans wake up? He is doing everything possible (deficit spending, insane foreign policy, guttin social security, letting big companies renig on pensions, tax breaks for the most wealthy, open borders, etc. etc) to weaken the US middle class, yet at the same time stepping up the fascist control of the government. Hello, Bush is NOT a conservative republican!! He is a Fascist dictator who has taken executive branch control to unprecidented levels. And the “democrats” are no better – they let him do it. If we had a true two-party system, this president would have been impeached 4 years ago.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
QWest Morons, Rows and rows of anonymous numbers do NOT constitute a violation of privacy. I’m cancelling my Qwest DSL and DirecTV account, you traitorous bastards.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Thank you QWest for protecting the rights of the American People.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Thanks to Qwest for acting as a responsible corporate citizen of this country by refusing to bow to unethical and illegal pressure from the NSA. I hope Qwest offers service to whatever area I’ll be moving to in the near future.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Scary times we live in when our persident is above the law and big corporate business is the follower.
Wow!
Thank you Qwest!
May 16th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Thank you so much for standing up against the unreasonable requests from the government. It’s a shame! We don’t know what else they have been spying on the people.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
“Live free or Die” is part of this country and that is what Qwest stood for by not allowing big brother these records. Anyone who thinks we are safe in a free society are very wrong, the government had evidence in their hands concerning 9/11 and blew it, so you don’t think that will happen again when it involves the government, get real. Way to go Qwest, you get all my business!!!!
May 16th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
THANK YOU Qwest for having the backbone to say NO to the Federal Government….You just made my “Most Admired Companies” List !!!!!
May 16th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
thanks for standing up for an individual’s rights!
May 16th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Thank you Quest
It is too bad that we have to thank a company for doing what is lawful and right. However, in a time when business and government are hardly distinguishable, I guess we do. So, again, thanks for your patriotic actions in protecting Americans’ privacy.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Thank you Qwest for having the spine to stick up for my rights. You restored my faith in corporate morality, and I’ll never switch to another carrier.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Thank you Qwest for your integrity, We are really happy to be your customers
Sincerely
Don and Pat Swearngain
303-280-3818
May 16th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Now that BellSouth has denied that it gave phone records to the NSA, I took a closer look at this story.
The only public confirmation that I can find of Qwest’s alleged refusals comes from the lawyers from Joe Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest.
Joe Nacchio is under indictment for insider trading.
Have we all been had?
May 16th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Thank you Qwest for standing up for your customers and country, and for being my phone and dsl provider.
Thank you Qwest for your early vision for the internet and investment in broadband infrastructure.
Thank you also to the creators of this site for providing this forum ~
May 16th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Qwest,
I have never before been proud to be a client of a corporation or service; now I am. Thank you for standing up to the NSA and preserving our rights. As usual, I am ashamed of many people in this country who do not understand the ramifications of encouraging governmental actions contrary to the law. I am happy that Qwest does understand! The next time I get a flyer with my bill that asks me to add services to my existing QWest account, I will.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Thank you Quest for integrity in the face of government manipulation. Do you serve Connecticut ? If you do we will switch our phone service.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
My late father was with AT&T and Bell Labs for nearly a half century. He would have been proud that the successor to NW Bell has taken a stand for the REAL users of the phones: the consumers. Thanks, Qwest!
GcB
May 16th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I have a new hero, and it’s…gasp…a corporation.
It’s a bird…it’s a plane…its QWEST.
Immediately after hearing that my phone company (verizon) decided to play lap dog to our dictator king George, and turn over my records to NSA, I called Qwest to switch my service. Unfortunately, they do not cover the California region for domestic service. But I’ll keep looking till I can dump verizon for a company that will stand up against the Nazis now running our government.
Thanks Qwest for upholding the constitution and our laws in a time when even the president thinks he is above all our laws.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
thank you Quest for believing in America and for having the guts to stand up to a crooked government that is bringing shame on all Americans past, present, and future. may others be encouraged by your stand. may God bless America.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Big applause to Qwest for standing up for the privacy of it’s customers instead of selling them out for the almighty dollar! If you were in MD, we would switch to you in a minute to protest the outrageous behavior of Verizon!
May 16th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I am a long-time customer of Qwest and suddenly much happier about it. Thank you for your courage to follow the law.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Major props to Qwest, standing up to the Bush Nazi regime takes some guts. This just gives me another reason to hate sbc/at&t and I cannot wait to switch to another isp/phone provider. I would go to Qwest in a second if they were around here.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
I want to commend your company for not providing cart blanc phone records of your customers. Without a court order those records should be confidential. Thanks for being a good corporate citizen.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Stand strong, Qwest! Oppose illegal governmental activities in whatever name! Uphold the Constitution and, in doing so, force the government to do so as well!
May 16th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
This isn’t about fighting terrorism – it’s about a separation of powers in our government that the Imperial Bush wants to abolish. Thank you Qwest for supporting our Constitution.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Congratulations Qwest for NOT breaking the law! If you would have done so our business would have changed over to a third-party provider yesterday!
Tibby