|
Mercury News – May 12, 2006
Uproar over phone spying:
Silicon Valley leaders outraged by idea
of calls being examined
K. Oanh Ha
Revelations that the government has collected phone-call records of millions of Americans touched off a political firestorm Thursday in Washington that spread quickly to Silicon Valley, where the news fueled outrage among business and community leaders - particularly those who make a lot of overseas calls.
Triggering the furor was a USA Today report that at least three companies -- AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth -- turned over call records for millions of their customers to the super-secret National Security Agency, which searches them for patterns to help identify terrorist networks. One source said the goal of the program, put into place shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, is to build a database of every call made within the country.
Critics said the massive collection of phone records violates Americans' privacy and raises disturbing questions about the government's reach into personal lives.
``Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al-Qaida?'' Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked. ``If that's the case, we've really failed in any kind of a war on terror.''
Bay Area citizens voiced suspicion and fear that phone logs would lead to surveillance of their phone calls.
``Even if it's just our phone call records, it's a very dangerous precedent,'' said Dilawar Syed, a Bay area tech professional from Pakistan. ``Now that they have the data, what will it take before they record and listen to our calls?''
Local leaders expressed shock and outrage. Immigrants within the Muslim and South Asian communities were particularly concerned, fearing the program would target their members. ``They're grasping at straws to find links to terrorism,'' said Sameena Usman, a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Santa Clara.
The organization received calls Thursday from Bay Area Muslims who suspect they are victims of wiretapping…
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14559977.htm
Detroit News – May 12, 2006
Advocates for civil liberties say attempt at
increased security lack proper supervision
Gregg Krupa
CANTON TOWNSHIP -- Immigrants and advocates for civil liberties in Metro Detroit Thursday criticized unsupervised domestic spying by the government, but they also said that national security remains an important priority in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The immigrants and advocates were responding to reports that the Bush Administration has, with the help of telecommunications companies, secretly collected telephone records from tens of millions of Americans -- most of whom are not suspected of crimes.
"It is not good, but one can understand," said Ihtesham Shadid, of Canton Township, an engineer and an immigrant from Pakistan. "We had a saying in Pakistan that basically is that if one is burned by a hot drink, one will be cautious even of a glass of cool lemonade. And I think that is what is happening, since 9/11. The government is trying to protect people.
"Sooner or later, the process of law will take its own course and these things will be checked with some checks and balances," Shadid said.
Some immigrants from Southeast Asia and the Middle East said they have long assumed they are disproportionately the targets of such surveillance because Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks, has members from that part of the world.
"This is what we have been saying all along: We are always considered terrorists," said Al Hamzi, of Dearborn, a mechanic who is of Palestinian descent. "Security is important, yes, because we have enemies.
"But everyone, all of us, came to live in the U.S. for the freedom. If it is not free, why come? Those murderers, those terrorists, they should not make us do this to ourselves."
Advocates for civil liberties, including officials of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Council on American Islamic Relations criticized the spying because of it lacks the supervision required by law.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060512/POLITICS/605120410/1022
CAIR Bulletin - May 11, 2006
CAIR calls for special counsel on
NSA phone data spy program
WASHINGTON, DC, May 11, 2006 - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has built a giant database of Americans' phone records.
According to a USA Today article, the NSA "has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth…The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime."
The phone records monitoring program, reportedly authorized by the president shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, authorizes the NSA to bypass a secret court set up to provide warrants for such surveillance.
In its statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said:
"The recent revelations of the secret domestic spying program should be an issue of concern for all Americans, but especially for American Muslims who have been previously targeted in other surveillance measures such as the mosque radiation monitoring, and the warrantless wiretapping program.
It is a moral, legal and political imperative for Congress to ensure that civil liberties and the right to privacy are maintained, even during times of international conflict and crisis. An independent investigator should be appointed to look into whether the NSA phone data surveillance program violated existing laws."
|
