Did Vonage give NSA our phone records?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 12, 2006 Posts: 1

Happy Vonage customer here.

Did Vonage hand over my phone records to the NSA in the recent phone records scandal? I've e-mailed you guys without a response. I'll try calling this evening. If I don't get an answer, I'll assume you have and cancel my service.

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 12:54 pm Post subject:

You should check out today's Forum Digest in which we learn Vonage will not give out your calling data without a subpoena.

Posts: 230 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject:

Why is it a scandal? and who would you go to anyway?

Posts: 73 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 2:16 pm Post subject:

Been wondering if this was going to pop up here.

Glad to see the answer in the digest...

Posts: 86 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 2:31 pm Post subject:

Good for Vonage for taking a stand on this matter. There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. The right way to obtain a list of anyone's incoming and outgoing calls to interdict terrorists is to involve the FISA court. The law allows notification to be done up to 3 days after the fact. In addition, Congressional oversight is required by law and that is not happening either.

What happened is that the NSA asked for the activity records of all phone calls placed. AT&T and other companies (not Vonage or Quest) simply agreed voluntarily to turn over these records representing an estimated 90% of all phone calls placed by Americans.

Fortunately, Vonage and Quest have taken a stand that these private records should be witheld until a court orders such release.

This whole affair is a blow to our values as a free and democratic nation. When the President said in December that the only targets of the NSA operation were suspected terrorists, does he consider all American citizens as potential enemy terrorists?

The U.S. federal government was designed to protect its citizens from foreign enemies. Now it seems the the U.S. federal government is trying to protect itself from its citizens.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 2:43 pm Post subject:

Kudos to Vonage for not releasing this information.

Keep in mind that some of your calls are in the database anyway, due to possible collection on the other end of the call.

For example, if an AT&T customer called you, that telephone call, with numbers from both sides, is in the database. I'm not sure about you calling an AT&T customer (I assume AT&T captures inbound information, who knows whether that information was shared).

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

Who gives a crap, anyway. If NSA wants to listen to my wife talk to her mother 800,000 times day, let em! Very Happy

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 03, 2005 Posts: 44

Because the next step is to arrest you for calling someone "they" don't like or listen to your calls on a "random" basis, both illegal under the US constitution without obtaining a search warrant.

Should the Congress and Courts continue to assert no control over the runaway Executive branch here in the USA, we have a situation closely resembling the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany, where he declared himself above the law. Sound familiar?

Posts: 476 · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 5:46 pm Post subject:

ArnB wrote:

Because the next step is to arrest you for calling someone "they" don't like or listen to your calls on a "random" basis, both illegal under the US constitution without obtaining a search warrant.

Should the Congress and Courts continue to assert no control over the runaway Executive branch here in the USA, we have a situation closely resembling the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany, where he declared himself above the law. Sound familiar?

Godwin's Law in 8 posts. That's got to be some kind of Vonage-Forum.com record.

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

If you're not doing anything illegal, why worry? Something to hide? Very Happy