Ex-Phone Chief Says N.S.A. Sought Data Earlier

From the New York times courtesy of AlterNet:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings.

The executive, Joseph P. Nacchio, also asserts in the filings that the agency retaliated by depriving Qwest of lucrative outsourcing contracts.

And

In support of Mr. Nacchio’s accusations, his lawyers quoted from one of several lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies, accusing them of violating their customers’ privacy. That lawsuit, filed last year against several companies, asserts that seven months before the Sept. 11 attacks, at about the time of Mr. Nacchio’s meeting at the N.S.A., another phone company, AT&T, “began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and Internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the N.S.A.”

The lawsuit contends that the center would “give the N.S.A. direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access” to phone call information and Internet traffic on AT&T’s network.

More here.

So what this tells us, if it's true, and I have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise, is that the Bush administration came into office with a grand power-amassing agenda. They were going after our civil liberties whether 9/11 happened or not. Of course, this is no surprise. It's fully in keeping with what we've heard about Dick Cheney's "unitary executive" theories, as well as his stated goal of reclaiming the Presidential power he believes was lost in the wake of Watergate. Apparently, 9/11 was a gift to them from on high, jump-starting a process that would have been a very tough sell without all those terrorists hiding under the bed.

Bottom line: the Bush administration is full of some very bad people who ought to be behind bars, rather than ruling us. But we already knew that.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$