What a joke the government is:
On Illegal Immigration they can not share informtion because of "PRIVACY 
LAWS" but on the other hand, they do as they please, because of "AL-QUEDA".
Does this make sense to anybody?
Michael

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060511/ts_usatoday/nsahasmassivedatabaseo
famericansphonecalls

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls By Leslie Cauley, USA 
TODAY 

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call 
records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, 
Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told 
USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by 
amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom 
aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA 
listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the 
data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, 
sources said in separate interviews.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program
"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.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has 
detailed records of calls they made - across town or across the country - 
to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others. 

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the 
NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying 
and tracking suspected terrorists, they said. 

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA 
program is secret. 

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become 
the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In 
that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking 
program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive 
than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had 
authorized the NSA to eavesdrop - without warrants - on international calls 
and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists 
when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not 
been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA 
was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush 
explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United 
States." 

As a result, domestic call records - those of calls that originate and 
terminate within U.S. borders - were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. 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.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's 
operations. "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible 
to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no 
information to provide," he said. "However, it is important to note that 
NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the 
law." 

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking 
program. "There is no domestic surveillance without court approval," said 
Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the 
federal government "are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of 
al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists." All government-sponsored intelligence 
activities "are carefully reviewed and monitored," Perino said. She also 
noted that "all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the 
intelligence efforts of the United States." 

The government is collecting "external" data on domestic phone calls but is 
not intercepting "internals," a term for the actual content of the 
communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the 
program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; 
it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official 
said. The data are used for "social network analysis," the official said, 
meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are 
tied together.

Carriers uniquely positioned AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the 
AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest 
telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service 
to more than 200 million customers. 

The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications 
technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance 
calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct 
access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to 
help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help 
the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to 
participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing 
over customer information to the government without warrants. 

Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its 
database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million 
customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also 
provide some services - primarily long-distance and wireless - to people 
who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at 
least some access in that area.

Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is 
charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. 
The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused 
to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA 
stood for "No Such Agency." 

In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been 
intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 
20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, 
code-named "Shamrock," led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
(FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.

Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must 
follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people 
believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the 
United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for 
adjudicating requests under FISA. 

Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve 
along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the 
practice of "data mining" - sifting through reams of information in search 
of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and 
mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications. 

Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, 
said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining 
operations. "FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining," 
said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld 
in Washington, D.C.

The caveat, he said, is that "personal identifiers" - such as names, 
    
Social Security numbers and street addresses - can't be included as part of 
the search. "That requires an additional level of probable cause," he said.

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. 

The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and 
the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to 
present a court order before they would even consider turning over a 
customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old 
Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew. 

Ma Bell's bedrock principle - protection of the customer - guided the 
company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of 
Consumers Union. "No court order, no customer information - period. That's 
how it was for decades," he said.

The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of 
the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are 
prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling 
habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to 
reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, 
also are covered. 

The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy 
reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be 
stiff. The 
    
Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications 
regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, 
with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition 
of "violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover 
one customer or 1 million.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed 
an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a 
warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an 
executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil 
liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree. 

Companies approached
The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according 
to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives 
approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency 
made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help 
to protect the country from attacks.

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. 

With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest. 

AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA 
TODAY: "We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say 
that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with 
protecting national security in strict accordance with the law." 

In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: "BellSouth does not provide 
any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency 
without proper legal authority." 

Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this 
statement: "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full 
compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' 
privacy." 

Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: "We can't talk about this. It's a 
classified situation." 

In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA 
to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that 
travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against 
AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone 
customers. 

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that 
possibility. Appearing at a 
    
House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought 
the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without 
a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked 
the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House 
might have that authority.

Similarities in programs

The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in 
common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants 
and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has 
argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, 
including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them 
broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts (news, 
bio, voting record), R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the 
program. In a statement, he said, "I can say generally, however, that our 
subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist 
Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by 
the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation 
from future attacks." 

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-
Mich., declined to comment.

One company differs

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the 
program: Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe 
Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need 
a court order - or approval under FISA - to proceed. Adding to the tension, 
Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' 
information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that 
illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The 
NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the 
aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the 
    
FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. 
As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information - known 
as "product" in intelligence circles - with other intelligence groups. Even 
so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, 
the sources said. 

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the 
country, pushed back hard. 

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. 

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers 
asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, 
the agency refused. 

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told 
(Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with 
them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA 
rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the 
U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of 
events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled 
investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about 
the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally 
pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

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