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Verizon, the phone company whose disclosure of customer data to the federal government is at the center of the furor over cooperation by technology companies with top-secret national security programs, has offered a precise, clear, but little-noticed public explanation of why it did what it did. The Verizon explanation is not in the vague and cryptic memo the company issued last week after the Guardian exposed its program. It came, instead, in the company’s annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, included in Verizon’s annual report to shareholders.

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls and the author of the Patriot Act, said today that the federal government's collection of millions of phone records as part of counter-terrorism efforts violates the controversial 2001 law, calling the effort "excessive and un-American." "While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses," Sensenbrenner said in a statement. "The (FBI's) broad application for phone records was made under the so-called business records provision of the Act. I do not believe the broadly drafted FISA order is consistent with the requirements of...

Congress' blackberries go through Verizon or ATT. Through a blanket seizing of these communications, the NSA is permanently intercepting and storing privileged material. A senior Senate staffer told Breitbart News, "Senators and staff all use Verizon phones. So the executive branch is monitoring the meta data of the Senate. This seems like a violation of the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution." "The calling data that is gathered can be more invasive than knowing the content of the call. One can figure out much about a person's personal habits, preferences and line of work from knowing how often and...

The national security of the United States justifies the collection of “metadata.” Seemed reasonable to me. “I want the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of every person in the five boroughs.” I barked the instruction to one of the eager young interns whose job was not to wonder aloud why cranky federal prosecutors made such demands but to produce the goods, pronto.He was new, but not so new that it didn’t seem like a bizarre directive. He wouldn’t say so, but his eyes were pleading, “Is everyone a suspect?”“Never mind,” said I as he started to scurry out the door....

So who really requested the warrant-less wiretaps on all Verizon customers? It wasn't the NSA. Take another look at the warrant (at link) and see if you can figure it out.

The current chief of security of Verizon, a company embroiled in controversy over the recent revelation of a secret government domestic spy program, is a former high level official in the FBI.

We have arrived at a defining moment for the progressive movement in this nation. The New York Times editorial board, which has generally given this president a lot of leeway throughout his career, wrote a scathing denunciation Friday of the Obama administration’s use of data mining, claiming that “the administration has now lost all credibility" on the issue of balancing civil rights with national security. Every progressive with even a shred of moral consistency should side with the New York Times against the White House. The events of the past month – from the Associated Press subpoena to the James...

At least one foreign government has gained access to sensitive data collected by the National Security Agency from U.S. telecommunications companies in dragnet court warrants demanding the secret transfer of U.S. customers’ calling records.

The Guardian's Bombshell Revelation About NSA Domestic Spying Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg Michael KelleyJune 6, 2013, 12:08 PM Last night Glenn Greenwald published a bombshell report revealing that the National Security Agency (NSA) is using the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act to secretly collect telephone records of millions of Americans. Although the revelation doesn't surprise privacy advocates, the fact that Greenwald obtained a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems is the first concrete piece of evidence exposing dragnet domestic surveillance. But, unfortunately...

As we now know, the NSA has been collecting data on millions of domestic and international phone calls for some time now — since 2006, according to Dianne Feinstein. Maybe this bothers you; maybe it doesn't. Feinstein insists the program is an essential part of "protecting America"; Congressman Mike Rogers says it has already been "used to stop a terrorist attack in the United States." But one person who doesn't like the idea of the NSA spying on Americans is Oregon senator Ron Wyden. And at a hearing in March, he asked James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, a...

A secret National Security Agency program to collect vast amounts of phone records has foiled multiple attempted terrorist attacks inside the United States, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters on Thursday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not specify how many attempted attacks had been prevented, or the nature of the threats, but the California Democrat said there had been more than one. The remarks were made to reporters following a meeting with senators who were concerned over a report in a British newspaper that the NSA had requested phone records from a division of telecommunications giant Verizon. According...

The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities. The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.'s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers. The agency is using...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

<p>The Washington Post has published a remarkable report showing that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been monitoring the central servers of major Internet companies -- Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple -- and "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time."</p>

Phone Record Gathering Story Blown Out of Proportion By Andrew C. McCarthy June 6, 2013 10:29 AM Now, we begin to see the wages of having an administration that abuses its awesome powers, then, as night follows day, stonewalls and misleads Congress and the public. Crucial national security measures, which operate on the forgiving assumption that government officials will conduct themselves honorably, are put at risk. The Washington Post publishes a wildly exaggerated report this morning about the government’s collection of telephone records for national security purposes. Mind you, I said collection of telephone records, not wiretapping of telephone conversations,...