BellSouth demands retraction of NSA spying story

BellSouth is demanding that USA Today retract a story claiming it and two other carriers were under contract to the National Security Agency to surrender call records for a domestic anti-terrorism surveillance program.

BellSouth claims the story's assertion that it was under contract to provide massive call record data to the NSA is untrue.

"No such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," the carrier said in a statement about the story, which appeared in the May 11 issue of USA Today.

BellSouth sent a letter to the president and publisher of USA Today, and the general counsel of Gannett Co., USA Today's parent, "insisting" on a retraction, BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said.

"We are insisting that the paper retract the false and unsubstantiatied statements that have been made regarding our company," Battcher said. "They have offered no proof of either of those (contract and call record submission) claims.

"We have no contract with the NSA, never had a contract with the NSA, and have never provided the NSA with any information, ever," Battcher concluded.

USA Today said it received the BellSouth letter and is reviewing it. The paper said it will respond.

Verizon and AT&T, which the story also pegged as contractually obligated to forward massive call record data to the NSA following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, also denied aspects of the story. Verizon would neither confirm nor deny involvement in the NSA's domestic spying program, yet said none of its wireline or wireless lines of business, prior to the acquisition of MCI, provided customer record or call data to the NSA.

AT&T said it cooperates on matters of national security "within the law." The Bush administration insists its warrantless surveillance program is legal.