From the AP:

Three telecommunications companies have declined to tell Congress whether they gave U.S. intelligence agencies access to Americans’ phone and computer records without court orders, citing White House objections and national security.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell “formally invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent AT&T from either confirming or denying” any details about intelligence programs, AT&T general counsel Wayne Watts wrote in a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Qwest and Verizon also declined to answer, saying the federal government has prohibited them from providing information, discussing or referring to any classified intelligence activities.

So, the companies told Congress, which is part of the federal government, that the federal government has prohibited it from telling the federal government what the federal government told them to do or not do.  That makes perfect sense.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.