US agency builds database of phone calls

The US government is secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans’ phone calls in an effort to build a database of every call made within the country, it was reported today.

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers’ phone calls to the National Security Agency programme shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The programme does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead, it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping programme that has been acknowledged by President George Bush.

The president said last year that he authorised the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as former NSA director General Michael Hayden, Bush’s choice to take over leadership of the CIA, was set to visit politicians on Capitol Hill in Washington today. Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA’s secret domestic eavesdropping programme.

As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking programme.

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operated within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the programme, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.