Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Paragraph from Research Paper

When the attacks of September 11th occurred, every avenue of how to intercept communications were discussed. The fear of another attack was running rampant throughout Washington and the rest of the country. Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) recommended an addendum to a routine spending bill that would greatly expand the federal government's power to intercept oral and electronic communications.(ACLU p.3) This lead to the warrantless wire tapping the USA Patriot Act is known for. In later years the news media would report on these illegal activities run by the National Security Agency or more commonly referred to as the NSA. The program of eavesdropping and data collection was authorized by President Bush to identify terrorists communicating within the borders of the United States. The usual mission of the NSA is to protect the United States by investigating threats from outside our nation, not from within. The data collected by the NSA was and still is being compiled to find trends in the calling habits of customers of AT&T, BellSouth, SBC, and Verizon. The analysts that work for the NSA are hoping to relate specific usage trends with known terrorist activity. All this was done behind closed doors and without the courts being involved. The only company to hold out in the big telecommunication circle was the Denver, Colorado based Qwest Communications. Qwest did not see how the NSA or other federal agencies could take their customers information without the courts being involved. It violated section 222 of the Communications act passed in 1934 protecting the customer's call records and habits with stiff financial repercussions against the company that let the persons personal information out without a legal warrant.(Cauley)