Text 11732, 46 rader
Skriven 2006-06-22 18:31:48 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: AT&T - we own your records sucker!!!
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com>

Following Microsoft's lead to phone home, AT&T declares they are the phone and
own your data. They have also said they would track your AT&T cable TV viewing
habits so just leave the tv on FoxNews while it is unattended <g>

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/25968prs20060622.html

NEW YORK -- Changes that AT&T has instituted in its privacy policy are a
completely inadequate response to the company's apparent betrayal of its
customers' privacy by illegally providing calling information to the NSA.

The changes, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, claim ownership
over its customers' records and sweeping new language describing the company's
uses of the records, including any purpose "involving potential threats to the
physical safety of any person."  Given that even the vaguest hunch by the
lowest-ranking security guard could qualify as a "potential threat," AT&T
appears to be trying to give itself license to do whatever it sees fit with
customers' data.

It has always been a part of the story that AT&T apparently violated its former
privacy policy, but that has never been the central problem with the reported
program.  If the allegations are true, AT&T could somewhat reduce its liability
for any participation in "The Program" once the new policy goes into effect on
Friday.  But such cooperation would still be illegal. Privacy policies do not
trump the laws of the U.S. or individual states. For example, Congress has
explicitly banned telecoms from providing customers' calling information to the
government outside of the specific legal channels created by Congress.  Many
states have similar laws.

And even more fundamentally, by secretly providing customer data to the
government outside of any legal channel, AT&T has violated the privacy
expectations of Americans - not just the terms of some legalistic privacy
policy, but their basic expectations for how private communications will be
treated in America.

No tweaks to any fine-print click-through contract unilaterally imposed on its
customers (and changed at will) can alter that fact.  We at the ACLU have
always maintained that the twisted legalese in corporate "privacy statements"
is a poor substitute for overarching privacy laws that all other industrialized
nations have adopted.  But in the NSA spying scandal, we have the all-too-rare
instance where existing laws actually do cover the behavior at issue, making
changes to AT&T's privacy policy nothing more than an exercise in spin control.

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