By Thomas Gryta
AT&T Inc. received requests on national security grounds for
detailed information for at least 35,000 customer accounts in the
first six months of 2013, the company disclosed in its first report
describing official requests for customer data.
The report follows a recent agreement between the Justice
Department and major Internet companies to make public more
information about security requests. Under that agreement,
telecommunications companies can now disclose limited information
about the requests but is restricted in what it can supply such as
the requests can only be enumerated them in blocks of 1,000.
AT&T is the first major phone company to disclose the
details of requests it gets under the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act.
Rival Verizon Communications Inc. made a similar disclosure last
month without disclosing requests for information under the
surveillance law. Verizon plans to update its transparency report
to release that information, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
The requests, granted by the FISA court, are the same type
released last summer by former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden. That set off a national debate about the extent of
the NSA's information-gathering tactics and included an order
compelling Verizon to turn over "metadata" about where and when its
customers were making phone calls.
In the first six months of last year, AT&T said it received
fewer than 1,000 requests for detailed information under the
federal surveillance act that sought information from at least
35,000 accounts. Those requests, which include such information as
location data, are issued through a court order.
The company also received between 2,000 and 2,999 government
requests for information about its customers on national security
grounds last year. Those so-called national security letters sought
access to at least 4,000 customer accounts.
The national security letters are subpoenas from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and have more limited information, such as
customer profile information, telephone numbers and call details,
than those issued through the FISA court.
In criminal and civil matters, AT&T said it received 301,816
requests from federal, state and local law enforcement for U.S.
customer information in 2013. That compares to 321,545 requests
reported by Verizon last month over the same period.
Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@wsj.com
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