Another Sting Operation, Can You Hear Me Now?

There has been a great deal of talk this week about a story that ran last December involving the NSA collecting phone records. The DBM is portraying it as a new item just in time for General Hayden’s confirmation hearing. I have said that this is a non-story and that the DBM rehashed it to coincide with the confirmation in an attempt to derail the process. Perhaps there is something else going on though.

Bell South and Verizon, two companies named in the USA Today article, claim that they were never asked to provide records nor did they actually provide any to the NSA or anyone else (except, of course, telemarketers). Wouldn’t it be interesting if the NSA actually made that up along with the CIA to see if they could catch one of the leakers? It is not beyond reason that they could have made this up to see if they could entice someone to go to the DBM and report it. It might have started as a mini-leak, or casual mention in December and then made more enticing as the confirmation neared.

BellSouth Corp. (BLS) (BLS) said Monday its “thorough review” found no indication it gave telephone records to the National Security Agency as part of a federal anti-terrorism surveillance program.(Source 1)

Verizon has not provided customer call data to the National Security Agency, nor had it been asked to do so, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The statement came a day after Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. made a similar denial.(Source 2)

There has already been one official who told ABC that they needed to replace their cell phones because NSDA was listening to them. I think it would be great if a suspected leaker was the only person given that information. They would have his butt in a sling and could prosecute him for the treason. The people who were given the phone number information could be brought to justice as well.

This will be very interesting indeed. There are reasons that the companies could be denying that they released information (such as only long distance carriers were solicited) but my scenario is as plausible as any other.

Happy hunting!

Source (1): My Way News
Source (2): WBAL

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