AT&T tangles in web of deceit
Geof wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

   As I grow older, my paranoia about the government dwindles, and my penchant for conspiracy theories fades alongside it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remain generally suspicious of the powers that be. As the saying goes, “Just because there’s no conspiracy theory doesn’t mean there’s no conspiracy.” And so, with this maxim in mind, two recent, seemingly unrelated news events caught my wary eye.
   In early March, American Telephone & Telegraph Company announced its intentions to acquire BellSouth for $67 billion. This merger would make AT&T the largest telecom provider in the country, effectively nullifying the 1984 trust bust, which split up AT&T into the “Baby Bells.” The announced merger is hardly news, and, while it concerns many people in the industry – both consumers and providers – considering the political and economic climate of late, it struck me as par for the course.
   Then, almost a month later, I came across an article in the online edition of Wired magazine that made me stop. According to Mark Klein, an ex-employee of AT&T’s San Francisco hub, and a witness in a class action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Security Agency has been working in concert with AT&T to tap the communications of American citizens. In his affidavit,    Klein stated, “unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals’ phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens.” Klein’s involvement in the operation included “connecting Internet circuits to a splitting cabinet,” and Klein “learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including    Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.”
This news in and of itself—again considering the political climate of late—is somewhat unremarkable. After all, President Bush has declared his unwavering right, in the name of the American people, to protect our national security during a time of war no matter what—even at the expense of civil liberties. Conveniently for the administration, the war in question is ambiguously defined and promises to go on indefinitely.
   Allow me to paint a picture of what I believe is going on. Picture, if you will, the National Security  Agency post-9/11: caught unawares by terrorists in our midst, and facing pressure from an administration intent on catching those responsible and making sure it never happens again.    Secret wiretapping was the obvious conclusion. Unfortunately, the telecommunications industry, while regulated by the federal government, is not controlled by it. So, the NSA, despite all its fancy gizmos and doodads, needed a partner in crime. As the largest phone service provider in the country, AT&T was another obvious conclusion. AT&T acceded—but with one small, or rather large,   stipulation: a quick and speedy approval of their $67 billion BellSouth acquisition.
   Too much of a stretch, you say? Too behind-the-back-of-the-American-people? Well, I hate to break it to you, but a lot has been going on behind our backs since Bush took office—and in the scheme of things, this one’s relatively innocuous. But, if true (and the world, as with the question of the number of Tootsie Pop licks, may never know), it should still be cause for concern. What this dubious relationship between AT&T and the NSA implies is that government and corporations are teaming up, at unprecedented levels, to further their own interests. Not only do the American people face the possibility of being spied on while we talk to grandma on the phone, but we face paying less competitive prices to use that phone—not to mention Internet bandwidth.
   According to an article on CNET, BellSouth is the “largest owner of 2.5GHz spectrum in the U.S.,” and also “has substantial 2.3GHz spectrum.” The merger, if allowed to go through, would “concentrate huge blocks of spectrum in one company.” Mark Cooper, a research director for the    Consumer Federation of America, quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, said of the merger, “What we’re really talking about here is people having only two choices—the phone company or the cable company. That’s a duopoly, and duopolies don’t compete very vigorously.” If you know anything about capitalism, you know it is based on competition. And if you know anything about corporations, you know they are in business to make money, not provide cheap services for their customers.
   If there is an intricate web of deceit to be un-spun, it will be extremely difficult to uncover.    Those who are aware they are doing something wrong are also aware of the need to cover it up.    And, as with most events the public has found unsettling lately, this event will no doubt end up on the back burner, only to reduce itself, under the low heat of a tepid media, to nothing. Without a vigilant public to call for an end to these questionable practices, the government/corporate steamroller will keep rolling and rolling. Soon, we’ll be flattened into the two-dimensional “democratic” voters our elected leaders so dearly wish us to become.