When telecom executives are hostile toward customer privacy

I wrote a few months ago about the emerging picture of a "surveillance-industrial complex" in the US, that is, a link between the private telecommunications industry and the federal government's spy agencies, back in December (see here). More relevations about the extent of this highly suspect relationship are continuing to come out in the media.

Brian Beulter has a column up at Raw Story that contain some interesting revelations regarding the US telecommunications industry and some of its shady ties to US intelligence agencies including the CIA and the Department of Justice.

According to the article: "One of the highest-level executives at Verizon Communications [the company's Executive Vice President and General Counsel William P. Barr] —second largest of the three major telecommunications firms originally alleged to be providing the National Security Agency with customer phone records under contract and without a warrant—has strong, decades-long ties to Central Intelligence, Congress and the Department of Justice [. . .] the same official has acted in an advisory capacity to the government as a private citizen for over ten years since leaving office, arguing that restrictions to federal domestic surveillance capabilities be loosened, especially in cases involving terrorism.

Apparantly, Barr has connections with the CIA going back to 1977, after which he rapidly rose up through the corporate ranks. However, according to Beuler "he has maintained ties with officials in Washington who have repeatedly called upon his testimony when crafting anti-terror legislation."

So where does this senior executive at a major private telecom company (which possesses access to the personal information, including call logs and billing records, of millions of its clients) stand in terms of respecting customer privacy? Basically, he stands with the Bush administration and their criminal disregard for federal law and the US Constitution.

According to Beuleter, Barr had, in his 1995 testimony to Congress, lauded legislation that "created a window for emergency wiretaps before the issuance of a warrant in conspiracy cases"—legislation that is still in effect. In 2003, he testified that the FISA laws hurt US security because they required "the government to go to a judge to obtain an order," which "makes absolutely no sense since it is precisely in the terrorism context that the need for speed is most acute."

However, it is well-known to anyone interested in the matter that the FISA laws and the Comprehensive Antiterrorism Act of 1995 both allow for temporary surveillance to be conducted prior to and without a warrant under "emergency" situations. Furthermore, out of thousands of requests for wiretaps, the FISA Court has only rejected a handful. Beuleter notes that Barr's critique ignores both of these salient points (as do various right-wing ideologues and Bush administration water-carriers).

Do you feel safe with Verizon being privy to your personal communications, knowing how at least one of their senior execcutives feels about such quaint notions as the rule of law?