BushCo's Waterboy? You Decide

I've noticed that Cliff Kincaid's recent articles (at least to my recollection) have been very apologetic for the Bush administration and their actions. His latest article, "A Smelly NSA "Scoop" at USA Today", attempts to discredit the USA Today article which tells of the NSA gathering up phone records of all Americans into a massive database. The basic idea behind the NSA program is to create an association of individual's calling records to look for suspect patterns. Of course, many Americans--me being one of them--are outraged by this because we feel that the government has infringed on our privacy.

 

So, let's quickly look at what Mr. Kincaid puts forward to disprove the USA Today article. His first attempt is to repeat a portion of a Verizon press brief. From it, Mr. Kincaid gleaned the following:

Verizon has released a statement noting that “One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers’ domestic calls.”

At face value, this does look bad for USA Today. But, after checking the actual text of Verizon's press release, we quickly realize that this quote implies something other than what was intended. Here's what Verizon actually released for public consumption:

As the President has made clear, the NSA program he acknowledged authorizing against al-Qaeda is highly-classified. Verizon cannot and will not comment on the program. Verizon cannot and will not confirm or deny whether it has any relationship to it.  (Emphasis mine)

And in their very next breath... Verizon comments on it:

That said, media reports made claims about Verizon that are simply false.

One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers’ domestic calls.

How are we to believe their denial when they just told us they "cannot comment" and "cannot confirm or deny" their relationship to it. Their subsequent statements about the program means nothing to us. Mr. Kincaid should have seen this for what it is. Verizon is playing three card monte with the truth and he fell for it. Heck, if we're going to misrepresent quotations like Mr. Kincaid, we could say that Verizon has admitted to working with the NSA. They even say so:

Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers’ domestic calls.

Of course, that's not what they meant, but they did say these exact words. Again, while the quotation would be accurate, the context in which it was presented would be inaccurate.

I'm not going to parse out the rest of Mr. Kincaid's article. That's not my intention. I wanted to pose the following question, though: Does Cliff Kincaid appear to be carrying water for this administration, or am I being way too hard on him? On the one hand, you have media agencies foaming at the mouth over the NSA programs while on the other you have Mr. Kincaid defending their programs. It just seems odd to me.

To be totally fare to Mr. Kincaid, I did just get through reading this excellent article by Ray McGovern titled, "Bowing To The Police State" before I read his. Maybe I was all keyed up and just didn't take too kindly to his version of reality. But, then again, mabey not.

Oh, and what about BellSouth's press release regarding their role in the NSA program? I found it for you here. The following is the pertinent part:

As a result of media reports that BellSouth provided massive amounts of customer calling information under a contract with the NSA, the Company conducted an internal review to determine the facts. Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA.

Um... ok? There are two ways to interpret their statement. If BellSouth is being genuine, they've conducted a very thorough and exhaustive review and their conclusion stands. However, if they are being disingenuous, then they've started the review process, but then tossed the file onto someone's "to-do" pile (where it is still sitting--"to date"). Either way, their statement is accurate.

One last tidbit... I saw a headline at PropagandaMatrix.com that read, "Judge gives go ahead in wiretapping suit." From the article we read that "the judge hearing a case challenging the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program said Wednesday that the plaintiffs may keep documents AT&T says contain proprietary information for use in preparing their case, but the documents must remain under seal." Of course, the Government still has their June 23 hearing where they will argue that the case be dismissed on grounds of protecting National Security. I've already covered this tactic by government here.