NEWS RELEASE
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media contact:
May 16, 2006 Peter Thonis
212-395-2355
peter.thonis@xxxxxxxxxxx
Verizon Issues Statement on NSA Media Coverage
NEW YORK -- Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) today
issued the
following statement regarding news coverage about the NSA program
which the
President has acknowledged authorizing against al-Qaeda:
As the President has made clear, the NSA program he acknowledged
authorizing against al-Qaeda is highly-classified. Verizon cannot
and will
not comment on the program. Verizon cannot and will not confirm or
deny
whether it has any relationship to it.
That said, media reports made claims about Verizon that are
simply
false.
One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media
reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,
Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to
provide
the NSA with data from its customers’ domestic calls.
This is false. From the time of the 9/11 attacks until just
four
months ago, Verizon had three major businesses – its wireline phone
business, its wireless company and its directory publishing
business. It
also had its own Internet Service Provider and long-distance
businesses.
Contrary to the media reports, Verizon was not asked by NSA to
provide, nor
did Verizon provide, customer phone records from any of these
businesses,
or any call data from those records. None of these companies –
wireless or
wireline – provided customer records or call data.
Another error is the claim that data on local calls is being
turned
over to NSA and that simple “calls across town” are being
“tracked.” In
fact, phone companies do not even make records of local calls in
most cases
because the vast majority of customers are not billed per call for
local
calls. In any event, the claim is just wrong. As stated above,
Verizon’s
wireless and wireline companies did not provide to NSA customer
records or
call data, local or otherwise.
Again, Verizon cannot and will not confirm or deny whether it
has any
relationship to the classified NSA program. Verizon always stands
ready,
however, to help protect the country from terrorist attack. We owe
this
duty to our fellow citizens. We also have a duty, that we have always
fulfilled, to protect the privacy of our customers. The two are
not in
conflict. When asked for help, we will always make sure that any
assistance is authorized by law and that our customers’ privacy is
safeguarded.