The Telcos' Handoff?

Administration officials have acknowledged that the government, as the NYT puts it, has "access to records of most telephone calls in the United States." So what's up with Verizon and BellSouth denying USAT's report that they've turned over the records?

The NYT' s suggestion:  The spooks are tracking only long-distance calls, and Verizon and BellSouth hand those calls off to other providers, such as, say, AT&T, which is the one company named that has stayed mum.

Meanwhile my friend Mr. Cook just emailed me flagging another potential explanation, which he noticed on Fox News. (Why Cook is watching Fox News is a different mystery.) Anyway, here's the transcript snippet he emailed me:

[Correspondent Brian] WILSON: Then there is this, Brit. FOX News has learned that BellSouth subcontracts with an Israeli company known as Amdocs to handle its billing, as do several other U.S. phone companies. In 2001, U.S. intelligence officials were on record as saying that the information that Amdocs handled was so valuable that a great deal could be learned if sophisticated data-mining techniques were used against that information -- Brit?

HUME: OK, Brian. Thank you.

The hints all fit together: The companies aren't turning over their records. But the companies that subcontract with them--AT&T for long distance,  AmDocs for bills...well let's see what denials they put out.

P.S. Fox News had a long seemingly over-the-top investigative report back in 2001 on AmDocs it's potential spying on the U.S.  From that 2001 Fox News report:

An internal Amdocs memo to senior company executives suggests just how Amdocs generated call records could be used. “Widespread data mining techniques and algorithms.... combining both the properties of the customer (e.g., credit rating) and properties of the specific ‘behavior….’” Specific behavior, such as who the customers are calling.
             
The Amdocs memo says the system should be used to prevent phone fraud. But U.S. counterintelligence analysts say it could also be used to spy through the phone system. Fox News has learned that the N.S.A has held numerous classified conferences to warn the F.B.I. and C.I.A. how Amdocs records could be used. At one NSA briefing, a diagram by the Argon national lab was used to show that if the phone records are not secure, major security breaches are possible.
             
Another briefing document said, "It has become increasingly apparent that systems and networks are vulnerable.…Such crimes always involve unauthorized persons, or persons who exceed their authorization...citing on exploitable vulnerabilities."

Indeed.

Comments

[Constant]

NARUS, the provider of the STA used for AT&T IP intercepts, is also linked to the AMDOCS, and AT&T billing. [Link under my name for more]

[Ben]

In the Amdocs list of worldwide offices, their Israel office is listed under "Europe."