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Verizon denies it gave numbers to NSA

Announcement comes after BellSouth issues similar denial.
Written by ZDNet UK, Contributor

Verizon today denied it had provided phone records to the NSA as part of the agency's huge datamining operation, the New York Times reports. The announcement comes a day after BellSouth also disavowed USA Today's claim that most of the major phone companies provided user data to NSA.

But Verizon's statement left open the possibility that MCI, the long-distance carrier the company bought in January, did turn over such records — or that the unit, once absorbed into Verizon, had continued to do so.

Verizon said Verizon did not provide customer records to the National Security Agency "from the time of the 9/11 attacks until just four months ago."

Verizon said today that "phone companies do not even make records of local calls in most cases because the vast majority of customers are not billed per call for local calls."

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