Pathetic

I recently fired off an e-mail to Verizon regarding their craven cave to the Bushoviki in turning over the phone records of their customers (including, presumably, your 'umble blogger) to the NSA. The following is what Verizon are pleased to term their "response" to my inquiry:

This message is in response to your email dated May 12, 2006. You inquired about the NSA news article. I will be happy to assist you.

We appreciate that the USA Today article and other reports about the possibility that the NSA is able to analyze local call data records is causing concern. Please be assured that Verizon places the highest value on protecting the privacy of our customers.

Anything to do with the NSA is of course highly classified, so we can not comment on whether or not the news article causing concern is even accurate. But we can say that, to the extent that we cooperate with government authorities, we are confident that we are complying with all applicable statutes. We appreciate the continuing opportunity to provide you with service.

As I remarked in my reply to "Robert," the flack responsible for sending me the foregoing piece of drivel, the last sentence of that second paragraph ("Please be assured that Verizon places the highest value on protecting the privacy of our customers") is an obvious falsehood. If that statement were in fact true, Verizon--like Qwest--would have told the NSA exactly where to stick its unconstitutional and illegal (not to mention pointless) request for the private records of its customers.

But the thing that really boils my bum is that last paragraph, the old "we can neither confirm nor deny" dodge. If you ask me, that paragraph is all the evidence needed to demonstrate that Verizon has a mens rea, a guilty conscience if you like, and is conscious of having crossed a very important line. But rather than acknowledge it openly, take its lumps, and offer a solemn pledge never to do it again, they've chosen the Bushoviki's favorite tactic, denying that anything illegal was done, and hiding behind the cover of secrecy. One might go so far as to call it the Republican duck-and-cover routine, they've done it so often in the last five years.

As I also told "Robert," I find the tactic unconvincing when Bu$hCo try it. I find it even less convincing when my phone company (at least for the next little while) does so. If this is any indication of the kind of crap I'm going to get out of Verizon, I'm thinking that one of the things that changes when I move is that I'll give up the land line altogether. I'll just up the minutes on my cellular contract, and swap a couple of movie channels I don't watch anyway for some high-speed internet on my cable bill, and I won't need the bloomin' phone anymore.

I've been less and less happy about paying $40 and change every month for one residential line with caller ID, particularly when nine-tenths of the calls that come in on that line are solicitations, wrong numbers, and push polls. Knowing that my phone company apparently considers its fiduciary duty to keep my customer records private to be a trivial matter that can be addressed with a patronizing and content-free form e-mail is not what I'd call a strong inducement to me to continue paying them an outrageous fee for a service I don't even use that much.

Comments

[Dan Holzman]

Check out Working Assets. They're part of the ACLU lawsuit against the NSA.

[Michael]

Been there, done that. WA is my long distance and cellular carrier. But they don't offer local service. But since I mostly use my landline to dial in to the university for internet access, I can give it up without much loss. I can either up the minutes on my cellular contract to cover the additional load (not much) or I can look into Comcast's VOIP service--Comcast also told the NSA where to stick its request.