911 Only Changed Their Excuse

This story is shocking - even to hardened skeptics like me. It seems that the Bush Administration sought Americans private phone records BEFORE the 9-11 attacks. Those who have excused the destruction of our constitutional rights because of the attacks that day, now find themselves embarrassed once again by their defense of the Bush Administration's un-American activities. Oh by the way, Qwest denied the request from the government which was followed by their business being blackballed for some government contracts and their leader arrested on insider trading allegations.

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings.
The executive, Joseph P. Nacchio, also asserts in the filings that the agency retaliated by depriving Qwest of lucrative outsourcing contracts.The filings were made as Mr. Nacchio fought charges of insider trading. He was ultimately convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading and has been sentenced to six years in prison. He remains free while appealing the conviction.
Mr. Nacchio said last year that he had refused an N.S.A. request for customers’ call records in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the agency initiated domestic surveillance and data mining programs to monitor Al Qaeda communications.
But the documents unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Denver, first reported in The Rocky Mountain News on Thursday, claim for the first time that pressure on the company to participate in activities it saw as improper came as early as February, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks.