BellSouth Corp., the No. 3 U.S. local telephone company, on Thursday demanded USA Today retract claims in a story that said the company had a contract with a U.S. spy agency and turned over customers' telephone records.
BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher denied the company had a contract with the National Security Agency and did not give access or provide call records to the spy agency as part of an effort to thwart any terrorist plots.
A couple of different possibilities here.
One is that USA Today went to press with the wrong information. That is the least likely scenario in my mind. USA Today would be royally screwed if they had allowed that to happen.
Two is that the administration is using Bellsouth, and this threat of a lawsuit, to get USA Today to surrender the leaker so that they can prosecute them. A sinister but potentially possible reason to pursue a lawsuit.
Three is that Bellsouth understands that they are about to get crushed by a cavalcade of lawsuits and is simply doing everything they can to muddy the waters and hold off the deluge. If this is the reason then they are just farting in the wind because they are totally going down.
Rumor update: There is some talk of a secret memo from the President encouraging the phone companies to lie. Anybody doubt this rumor?
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Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.