U.S. Focused on Obtaining Long-Distance Phone Data, Company Officials Indicate

US FOCUSED ON OBTAINING LONG-DISTANCE PHONE DATA, COMPANY OFFICIALS INDICATE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel & Ken Belson]
Government efforts to obtain data from the nation's largest phone companies for a national security database appear to have focused on long-distance carriers, not local ones, statements by company officials indicate. The statements have come in the week since USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had collected local and long-distance phone records on tens of millions of Americans from Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The responses by the companies suggest that the agency, in an effort to find patterns that could identify terrorists, sought records from major long-distance providers like the former MCI (now part of Verizon), AT&T and Qwest, but did not ask for data on local calls. Technical experts said long-distance calling records could yield information not only on the companies' own long-distance customers, but also on traffic that the carriers connect on behalf of others, including some calls placed on cellphones or on Internet voice connections. But they added that unless the data was supplemented, considerable holes would remain, since cell companies route their long-distance calls over a variety of networks, as do providers of Internet phone service. For example, "They wouldn't have much information about cellular calls, whether cellular-to-cellular or cellular-to-wired calls," said Andrew Odlyzko, the director of the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota and former researcher at AT&T Labs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/us/18call.html
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* Wider Briefing for Lawmakers on Spy Efforts
Classified briefings provided to lawmakers on Wednesday about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program have smoothed what might have been a contentious path toward confirmation for Gen. Michael V. Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The closed-door sessions in the Capitol, on the eve of a confirmation hearing for General Hayden, were the first time the White House had provided briefings to the full Senate and House Intelligence Committees about the program. As director of the National Security Agency until last year, General Hayden oversaw the surveillance program, whose existence came to light in December.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18nsa.html
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* Lawmakers Briefed on NSA Program
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114791215208456083.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

* List describes 30 briefings on NSA work
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060518/a_nsa18.art.htm

* Oversight? What oversight? Congress briefed, then gagged
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060518/edit18.art.htm