Watch What You Say

Two months after the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens, only three corporations--AT&T, Sprint and MCI--have been identified by the media as cooperating. If the reports in the Times and other newspapers are true, these companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages and e-mails without warrants from a special oversight court established by Congress under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Some companies, according to the same reports, have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates.

Despite the President's rigorous defense of the program, no company has dared to admit its cooperation publicly. Their reticence is understandable: The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of the government officials who leaked the NSA story to the Times, and many constitutional scholars and a few lawmakers believe the program is both illegal and unconstitutional. And the companies may be embarrassed at being caught--particularly AT&T, which spent millions advertising its global services during the Winter Olympics. "It's a huge betrayal of the public trust, and they know it," says Bruce Schneier, the founder and chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security, a California consulting firm.