One of the hot topics in U.S. politics right now is claims, first reported in USA Today, that the government is eavesdropping on the phone calls made by Americans between other Americans living in America.
Today, Verizon, one of the largest phone companies in the U.S. issued a statement, which included the following:
One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers’ domestic calls.
This is false . . . Verizon was not asked by [National Security Agency] to provide, nor did Verizon provide, customer phone records from any of these businesses, or any call data from those records.
Verizon is following the lead of BellSouth, another U.S. phone giant, which says it never turned over phone records to the government.
USA Today has an article responding to these responses’. A USA Today spokesman said: “We’re confident in our coverage of the phone database story. We will look closely into the issues raised by the Bell South's and Verizon’s statements.”