Verizon Lobbying Congress Over NSA Data Collection

from the but-of-course-they-are dept

Mon, Aug 12th 2013 1:40pm — Mike Masnick

The latest lobbying disclosure forms are out for lobbying efforts in the second quarter, and as Dave Maass points out, wouldn't you know, Verizon's lobbyist, Mike McKay disclosed that he was lobbying the House of Representatives on "NSA's data collection of of phone records."

Now, there's no indication over what the argument being made was -- but it's notable in that while various tech companies have been quite vocal about the whole NSA situation, AT&T and Verizon have been deafeningly silent. If they were working Congress hard to protect consumers' privacy rights... wouldn't that be something they'd be talking about publicly?

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Filed Under: data collection, lobbying, metadata, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy
Companies: verizon

11 Comments

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Lord Binky, 12 Aug 2013 @ 1:57pm

I'm confident they lobby for the NSA to collect data on their customers as long as they recieve money for the data and that money is larger than the cost of lobbying for that data to be collected.
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out_of_the_blue, 12 Aug 2013 @ 1:59pm

"while various tech companies have been quite vocal"
Name three that have done anything more than token public relations efforts, while what they do in actual day-to-day operations is go along.

Edward Snowden: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and the rest of our internet titans must ask themselves why they aren't fighting for our interests the same way -- MAYBE, Ed, it's the billions they get BEING snoops?
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gorehound (profile), 12 Aug 2013 @ 2:09pm

They are probably doing this to get their dirty mutts on more Gov Money.And none of them give me a reason why I should ever Trust them.The Telcos got quite a bit to answer for already.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Aug 2013 @ 3:00pm

And they were worried spring wasn't going to come. They seemed afraid of it, and yet they kept doing things to hasten its arrival.
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CommonSense (profile), 12 Aug 2013 @ 3:30pm

Re:
I'd actually bet that they're lobbying at this point to make sure the government keeps it's mouth shut about how cooperative they've been in violating constitutional rights, since that's where the debate is clearly headed already...
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anonymoose, 12 Aug 2013 @ 4:24pm

Government. Contracts.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Aug 2013 @ 4:43pm

They are lobbying, because Verizon and AT&T receives cash rewards for every law-abiding customer's metadata and location data they unconstitutionally turn over the the US Government.

In other words, they're paid snitches. They don't want to see that double dip money go away.

First they charge customers to use the services, then they charge the government to hand over a law-abiding customer's information to the NSA.

Double profits!
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Pseudonym, 12 Aug 2013 @ 7:46pm

Given the penchant for the government punishing you for protesting in public, they might think that this is more likely to get results.
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Ninja (profile), 13 Aug 2013 @ 3:46am

Obviously they are silent. They owe too much of their market control to the Govt and the Govt owes them too much for the donations. A perfect symbiosis.
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Paul Keating (profile), 13 Aug 2013 @ 4:16am

Lobbying = attempt to get more money
No corporation lobbies for the protection of the public. If they are lobbying, you can be assured it is an attempt to receive more money in return for their tirelessly helping the NSA improve security.
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Jim Anderson, 13 Aug 2013 @ 12:29pm

Truth be told
There are some more responsible than others and they be held accountable both legally and commercially
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