There's a lot we still don't know — and may never know — about the National Security Agency's surveillance of Americans' phone calls. But one striking tidbit has emerged: that the agency is mining phone records for patterns of terrorist activity.
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte declassified a list of 30 congressional briefings the Bush administration says have been held since the National Security Agency began its no-warrant surveillance program after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Verizon Communications Inc. says it did not give the government records of millions of phone calls, joining fellow phone company BellSouth in disputing key assertions in a USA Today article.
AT&T; Inc. and BellSouth Corp. have been added to a lawsuit seeking $200 billion in damages from telephone companies accused of violating privacy laws by turning over calling records to the government, lawyers said Tuesday.
The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telephone industry, should open an investigation into whether the nation's phone companies broke the law by turning over millions of calling records to the government, an FCC commissioner says.
Verizon Communications Inc. faces its first lawsuit that claims the phone carrier violated privacy laws for giving phone records to the National Security Agency for a secret surveillance program.
Former Qwest Communications Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio refused to share customer telephone records with the National Security Agency following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because authorities did not want to use "any legal process" to justify their request, Nacchio's attorney said Friday.
A report in USA Today that the National Security Agency was building a database of Americans' phone records, with the help of three major U.S. telephone companies, reignited discussion around the country about the tricky balance between civil liberties and counterterrorism efforts.
Reaction to reports that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting ordinary Americans' telephone records:
If the National Security Agency is indeed amassing a colossal database of Americans' phone records, one way to use all that information is in "social network analysis," a data-mining method that aims to expose previously invisible connections among people.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor declined to step into the uproar over secret collection of Americans' phone records, saying a close look at the facts by courts could determine whether the government acted properly.
Lawmakers demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a spy agency secretly collecting records of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of all calls within the country.
Noting that Congress holds the power of the purse, a frustrated Senate chairman threatened to try to block money for President Bush's domestic wiretapping program.
A former National Security Agency computer analyst was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for taking home classified documents and storing them in boxes in his kitchen after he left his job.
Civil rights attorneys have sued the National Security Agency, claiming it illegally wiretapped conversations between the leaders of an Islamic charity that had been accused of aiding Muslim militants and two of its lawyers.
Under fire for eavesdropping on Americans, President Bush said Thursday that spy work stretching from the U.S. to Asia helped thwart terrorists plotting to use shoe bombs to hijack an airliner and crash it into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast.
After weeks of insisting it would not reveal details of its eavesdropping without warrants, the White House reversed course Wednesday and provided a House committee with highly classified information about the operation.
Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law.
The White House was eager to protect its ability to gather foreign intelligence. Congress was eager to rein in executive power. What sounds like a new debate over the president's ability to eavesdrop without warrants occurred 30 years ago.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday the Bush administration's domestic spying is within the president's inherent power under the Constitution, and he rejected criticism that Congress was kept in the dark about it.