Editorial: Government investigators too cozy with communications companies

In today’s print edition of The New York Times, reporter Charlie Savage published an article citing unnamed “government officials” that gives readers a clue why AT&T may be doing so well this year — they are voluntarily selling customer data to the Central Intelligence Agency at a rate of more than $10 million a year.

Absent an emergency, phone companies are usually legally forbidden to provide customers’ calling records to the government except in response to a subpoena or a court order, and the CIA has a mandate to focus overseas.

“The CIA protects the nation and upholds privacy rights of Americans by ensuring that its intelligence collection activities are focused on acquiring foreign intelligence and counterintelligence in accordance with US laws,” a spokesman for the CIA was quoted in the Savage article. “The CIA is expressly forbidden from undertaking intelligence collection activities inside the United States for the purpose of acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of American citizens, and the CIA does not do so.”

Unintended consequences? As with most public-private partnership boondoggles, the intended purpose is noble — to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls.

The Department of Justice, through the Bureau of Investigation, may obtain call records “on a voluntary basis from providers, without any legal process or a qualifying emergency.” That’s the FBI, not the CIA. Could international CIA intelligence become a source for domestic FBI activity — or the other way around? Of course, and it already is.

What’s disturbing to me is why AT&T would agree to provide the confidential call records of, not only its own customers, but the customers of other telephone companies who may use AT&T networks to complete calls.

In my humble opinion, if a government investigator, CIA, FBI, NSA, or any other agency, has obtained sufficient evidence of criminal activity, they should have no objection to the simple step of obtaining a subpoena — then AT&T should comply, but not before.