Bush denies phone database allegations But the evidence is stacked against himBy Nick Farrell: Friday 12 May 2006, 07:24THE BUSH administration has denied that it has agreements with the US's biggest phone companies to record the telephone calls of all Americans in a single database. The president said that the privacy of ordinary Americans was fiercely protected in all US spying activities and he said that the spooks were not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.That is not how USA Today reported the situation yesterday. It said that the National Security Agency (NSA) was secretly collecting phone records from phone companies to analyse calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist plots.Named in the report is AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth who have been sending over the data since September 11, 2001. Qwest told the government to go forth and multiply because it was concerned for its customer's privacy. Bellsouth have denied handing over such records for a few years and the other phone companies say that they are only helping out government investigators in accordance to the law.The yarn was based on "anonymous sources" and if true means that the government has collected details on tens of millions of ordinary Americans in the hope of finding a dodgy link or two. It does not seem to have worked as the arrest ratio for terrorists in the US is remarkably low. However, the move has miffed Democrats and Republicans who are fuming that the government might be taking the pith over civil liberties.Some are saying that the White House lacks congressional oversight and the country depends on the media to tell them what's what.
