BellSouth: No Call Data Given to NSA

With the NSA's recently uncovered domestic call tracking program facing increasing public criticism, BellSouth said Monday that after an internal review it determined it had not given any call data to the NSA. The company, along with AT&T and Verizon, was accused of supplying the agency with the call records of millions of Americans in a USA Today report last week.

BellSouth said that following the report, an investigation was conducted to see if the company had been supplying the NSA with such information. "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," the company said in a statement.

The Bush Administration has yet to either confirm or deny the story's validity. President Bush said that any activity by the NSA was within the confines of the law, and that the government would get court approval before listening in on domestic calls.

The call-tracking program detailed in the USA Today article only included the "external" details of the calls, not the "internals," which is the content of the phone call itself.

Even so, at least one Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission has pushed for a federal investigation into the legality of the program, saying it may have broken communications laws which protect the privacy of American's phone call records unless the customer approves their release.

BellSouth seemed to agree with this premise in its statement. "BellSouth has built a successful business because of the trust that our customers have placed with us," it said. "We will continue to take our obligations to our customers seriously."

Verizon and AT&T have both not directly answered whether or not they participated in the program, with AT&T saying it only provided information to the government "strictly within the law."