Bellsouth demands NSA call data story retraction

RAW STORYPublished: Thursday May 18, 2006

Bellsouth, one of three major telephone service providers singled out by a USA Today report on NSA phone data collection, has demanded the paper correct the story, according to today's Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:
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As lawsuits mount against BellSouth Corp., the phone company faxed a letter to USA Today demanding the newspaper retract "the faults and unsubstantiated statements" outlined in an article naming the company as having provided domestic calling records to the National Security Agency.

The letter sent Thursday to USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon as well as the general counsel of the newspaper's parent company, Gannett Co., asks for an immediate correction of the article's characterization of BellSouth's relationship to the NSA.
According to BellSouth, the letter quotes phrasing from the May 11 article that describes a massive database of domestic calls that BellSouth as well as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. provided to the NSA.

Earlier this week, BellSouth denied turning over bulk calling records to the NSA, amid uproar over the alleged role of phone companies in U.S. surveillance efforts. The Atlanta-based company also said the agency had never contacted it to provide massive amounts of information about domestic calls.
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The full, registration-restricted story can be found here.