This would indeed be sweet, a trial. Which side would Johnny Cochrane work for? And would there be ANY media coverage?

epador, seeing that Johnny Cochran is dead, he'd be on USA Today's side, on work-release from Hell.

J.

I'm just an idiot who can't read.

While tempting ( and I am no fan of Bell South)I doubt that they will sue the paper. I forget the name of the case, but back in 1964 the Supreme Court in a case involving the NYT made a ruling that makes it almost impossible to sue a newspaper for slander or defamation unless intentional misconduct can be proved which is highly unlikely.

bob they can sue for anything

bob,
Bell South can sue for any economic damages they suffer defending themselves as a result of provably false information printed in USA Today.
Falls outside the parameters of slander. They have a VERY good chance of winning, they just are not entitled to punative damages.
Besides, what makes you think it wasn't intentional. Bush Kool-aid is a powerful brew that makes sane people do insane things.

I can't stop thinking that this whole business is another canary trap like the "secret European Prisons" story. Soon there will be a perp walk featuring a Bush-hating CIA staffer, or State Department feather-nester.

"BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher denied the company had a contract with the National Security Agency and did not give access or provide call records to the spy agency as part of an effort to thwart any terrorist plots."

Rather an artful statement, that. No contract with the NSA, huh? DOD, maybe? Commerce?

Nail these guys down. Did you sell CDR data sets to anybody, and if so who?

Did you sell CDR data sets to anybody, and if so who?

Well, its reasonable to believe that they have sold the data to telemarketers and such, just not to government 'Spy' agencies. I think that's why they are parsing so carefully. I don't think that they will reveal their marketing contracts.

Tob

did not give access or provide call records to the spy agency as part of an effort to thwart any terrorist plots.

Also neatly worded to distinguish between this datamining program and specific requests via Fisa letters and whatnot. Note the terrorist plots
not ongoing investigations or soemthing similar Clearly written by lawyers.

Tob

mojo said: Rather an artful statement, that. No contract with the NSA, huh? DOD, maybe? Commerce?

Or maybe they just handed it over to the NSA with no contract at all...

Or maybe they just handed it over to the NSA with no contract at all...

Except that they appear to be flatly denying handing data over with the caveat that they didn't hand it over as part of an effort to thwart any terrorist plots. Maybe they did hand data over for some number of specific cases via FISA letter or supoena. Definitely slipper wording though.

Tob

All we know right now is that USA Today reported that the three telecoms provided records to the NSA, and that a few days later the telecoms denied it. Who's telling the truth? How do we know? Did the telecoms provide different info to the NSA than was reported? Or did they provide nothing at all?

Only their hairdresser knows for sure.

Kobe/Paul, the courts ruling gives the media a rather wide latitude of protection from suits. That is why there are so few of these cases litigated against the media. If the court where to narrow this
and tighten the standards of defence for the press to would be a welcome spur towards honesty and accuracy in the media.

This may shed some light.

The Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans' finances, phone numbers, and biographical information, according to a report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Often, the agencies and their contractors don't ensure the data's accuracy, the GAO found.

Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules. The Privacy Act of 1974 restricts how federal agencies may use such information and requires disclosure of what the government is doing with it. But the law applies only when the government is doing the data collecting.

It's entirely possible that the telecos are farming out the phone records work to third party companies that then sell it to the feds, allowing the telecos to make such statements.

Keep in mind that Qwest has said they were asked and refused. Verizon claims it was never even asked. Which one has reason to lie?

Or, in simple terms, even though the story fell apart, the left won't let it go.

Like the forged memos.

Isn't the left the "reality-based" group?
-=Mike

Hmmm.

The most likely scenario is one where the NSA contracts out to a consulting firm the job of acquiring, maintaining and data mining the telco data. And if the NSA has a specific phone number it wants to check on, then the NSA transmits the phone number to the contractor, who then does a matching search and then returns the applicable data back to the NSA.

This would allow:

1. The NSA to bypass privacy restrictions since the NSA doesn't have access to the raw data itself, only the results of successful matches.

2. The telcos can rightfully claim that they didn't give the data to the NSA. They legally sold it to a private company.

"2. The telcos can rightfully claim that they didn't give the data to the NSA. They legally sold it to a private company."

Very possible.

So the next logical question is: WTF are all the Dems/MSM whining about? Info that telemarketers have been getting for years? Why is this a big deal all of a sudden? Oh, yeah, Bush is prez.

Shameless politicking about matters that affect our national security.

Why would anyone trust the Dems with our security...