A former Qwest Communications International executive has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records that the company thought might be illegal.
His account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.
Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program. That truly is what's going on here."
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