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January 20, 2006
Privacy depends on government and business
Many private companies are generating profits by providing services to the U.S. government in the rebuilding of Iraq. It makes sense to ask the question: How else are businesses profiting from homeland security?
The revelation by The New York Times that the Bush administration has authorized warrantless surveillance of telephone calls within the United States raises new questions. The Times (original story now in paid archive; you can read a summary on Yahoo!News or MSNBC) also disclosed another way in which government and big business are linked.
... since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
In the past five years, the government has "been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches," the article says.
Questions: Are the companies being compensated, or just doing this as their contribution to homeland security? How else is information about us being collected by businesses and shared with the government?
Posted by Dalia Naamani-Goldman at January 20, 2006 05:29 AM
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