Pressure to Spy Came Early

Questioning the legality of public survellance, Qwest executive defends refusal to share private call records. Apparently, the phone company's cooperation was sought prior to the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11
By: Scott Shane
New York Times
Published: October 14, 2007

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings. The executive, Joseph P. Nacchio, also asserts in the filings that the agency retaliated by depriving Qwest of lucrative outsourcing contracts....
Mr. Nacchio said last year that he had refused an N.S.A. request for customers’ call records in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the agency initiated domestic surveillance and data mining programs to monitor Al Qaeda communications.
But the documents unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Denver, first reported in The Rocky Mountain News on Thursday, claim for the first time that pressure on the company to participate in activities it saw as improper came as early as February, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin