Thanks to Edward Snowden and reporters at the Times and ProPublica, we now know that AT&T likely handed over to the National Security Agency billions of cellphone calling records over roughly two years beginning in August 2011.
According to documents reported Saturday by the Times, AT&T gave the NSA as many as 1.8 billion sets of data each day about who people called, when and for how long. Though Verizon, also provided the NSA access to similar metadata, AT&T appears to have been a partner without peer. According to ProPublica:
“While it has long been known that American telecommunications companies work closely with the spy agency, the documents we’ve published show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative” and another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”
It appears the calling records allowed intelligence agencies to run queries, relying on orders issued by a court pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, on calls that originated overseas but passed across AT&T’s network. In addition, the company reportedly gave the NSA billions of emails that flowed across its network in the dozen years that followed the 9/11 attacks.
AT&T also provided the NSA with access to high-capacity broadband lines that serve the United Nations in New York, according to the documents.
“We do not voluntarily provide information to any investigating authorities other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence,” Brad Burns, an AT&T spokesman, told ProPublica without elaborating.