I don't think working assets can be assumed to be safe. They won't transfer information but the people who they purchase the phone services from will. Which is why they don't mention this on their web site.
I recently received a credit card pitch from W.A., which made me a little suspicious of them. I didn't check the fine print about their rates before I chucked it, but the fact that they were spamming, combined with the prominently labelled recycled envelope they used to do their spamming, didn't make me hopeful that they were an efficient company. If the charitable donations they talked up come out of my credit interest rates, and they've got that sort of advertising expense... well, I threw it away with a bad feeling about the company.
In light of new revelations about the big telecommunications carriers' handing over domestic calling records to the National Security Agency, I am writing to let you know where Working Assets stands on the NSA's increasingly alarming activities.
Working Assets believes that the warrantless monitoring of phone conversations ordered by the Bush administration is illegal and unacceptable. We also unequivocally oppose the disclosure of domestic calling records to the NSA by our nation's telecommunications providers. As reported yesterday in USA Today1, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon sold customer call records to the NSA. Working Assets would never, under any circumstances, give (let alone sell) records to the Bush administration without a warrant or court order.
In fact, as Working Assets' President, I recently signed on to an amicus brief supporting the ACLU's law suit against the National Security Agency. We are the only telephone company participating in this lawsuit.
Working Assets has never been approached by any government agency seeking our help in illegally accessing the content of conversations by our customers, and we would refuse any such request. We are actively engaged in opposing warrantless monitoring, in pushing for full disclosure by the government regarding the scope of the monitoring, and in protecting citizens from intrusive and illegal exercises of governmental power. Additionally, we are fighting Bush's nomination of General Michael V. Hayden, the architect of the NSA's illegal wiretapping program, to head the CIA.
If you are a member of AT&T (including Cingular and SBC), Bell South or Verizon, your telecom company willingly sold the private telephone records of American citizens to the Bush administration's illegal domestic spying operation. Please contact your provider now, and let them know that this is simply unacceptable.
You can also find out more about Working Assets Wireless and Working Assets Long Distance at http://www.workingassets.com.
You may also be interested in a new book we are publishing, entitled How Would A Patriot Act?, a compelling analysis of how the NSA's wiretapping fits into a larger scheme by the Bush Administration to violate Constitutional restrictions on executive authority in an unprecedented manner. Click here to find out more about the book.
As a telecommunications company, it is our special privilege to facilitate communications among our fellow citizens, to enable conversations on matters personal, commercial, social and political. It is therefore our special obligation to oppose warrantless interference into those communications, whatever the government's justification may be. We will keep you posted on new developments as they arise.
Here is more info. Working assets uses sprint, which may or may not have provided the phone number info to the nsa database.
>An important element of our relationship with Sprint is that while we utilize Sprint's underlying network on behalf of our customers, we do not give Sprint any of our customer information, including name, address, billing info.
Working Assets does provide the sending and destination phone numbers to sprint, or else sprint couldn't make the calls. This is the only info in the nsa database. Working Assets seems to be pretending, along with the bush administration, that reverse look-up is some sort of big deal.
Working Assets seems to be pretending, along with the bush administration, that reverse look-up is some sort of big deal.
Does the reverse look up become a big deal if the information you need to look up in reverse is held by a noncooperating party like Working Assets?
It might be easy for the administration to move from information about time and phone numbers of a call to the person who placed the call if they can just get the data from a telco that is already providing them with a bunch of data. But is it harder if the account is just listed as a working assets number?
I'd be very happy to believe that T-Mobile weren't participating since that's the company I use for my cell. (Goooo, Deutsche Telekom!)
Unfortunately, I just suspect their denial of "participation" means that whatever other company that holds their records participated.
I also suspect that if what Joe O. suggested above about W.A. is true for these telco companies that are rushing all over themselves to deny participation, it means that they've been assured that the truth about this program is not going to come out. Or at least not soon.
I don't think working assets can be assumed to be safe. They won't transfer information but the people who they purchase the phone services from will. Which is why they don't mention this on their web site.
Working Assets resells services from the large companies under their own Working Assets brand. Large phone companies such as Sprint are Working Assets underlying network. Working Assets doesn't have fiber optic, cable, copper wire, satellites, dishes, etc. of their own. Working Assets must get the information to bill their customers from the company that actually carried the call on their infrastructure. They take the call records from the large carrier such as Sprint and print them on their own Working Assets bills and provide customer service. Working Assets is an excellent company and they do wonderful things.
But I believe that Working Assets' underlying carriers would also need to promise that they had not handed over the records to the NSA. How would Working Assets know that absolutely had not happened?
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 1:37 PM
Huh. I wonder why W.A. sent that letter if they couldn't promise anything. I haven't seen the actual letter, so I don't know how it was worded.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 1:42 PM
I recently received a credit card pitch from W.A., which made me a little suspicious of them. I didn't check the fine print about their rates before I chucked it, but the fact that they were spamming, combined with the prominently labelled recycled envelope they used to do their spamming, didn't make me hopeful that they were an efficient company. If the charitable donations they talked up come out of my credit interest rates, and they've got that sort of advertising expense... well, I threw it away with a bad feeling about the company.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 1:53 PM
Here is the working assets letter:
A Message From Working Assets' President
In light of new revelations about the big telecommunications carriers' handing over domestic calling records to the National Security Agency, I am writing to let you know where Working Assets stands on the NSA's increasingly alarming activities.
Working Assets believes that the warrantless monitoring of phone conversations ordered by the Bush administration is illegal and unacceptable. We also unequivocally oppose the disclosure of domestic calling records to the NSA by our nation's telecommunications providers. As reported yesterday in USA Today1, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon sold customer call records to the NSA. Working Assets would never, under any circumstances, give (let alone sell) records to the Bush administration without a warrant or court order.
In fact, as Working Assets' President, I recently signed on to an amicus brief supporting the ACLU's law suit against the National Security Agency. We are the only telephone company participating in this lawsuit.
Working Assets has never been approached by any government agency seeking our help in illegally accessing the content of conversations by our customers, and we would refuse any such request. We are actively engaged in opposing warrantless monitoring, in pushing for full disclosure by the government regarding the scope of the monitoring, and in protecting citizens from intrusive and illegal exercises of governmental power. Additionally, we are fighting Bush's nomination of General Michael V. Hayden, the architect of the NSA's illegal wiretapping program, to head the CIA.
If you are a member of AT&T (including Cingular and SBC), Bell South or Verizon, your telecom company willingly sold the private telephone records of American citizens to the Bush administration's illegal domestic spying operation. Please contact your provider now, and let them know that this is simply unacceptable.
* Contact AT&T: http://www.consumer.att.com/contact?source=body
* Contact Verizon: http://www22.verizon.com/CustomerSupport/ContactUs/
* Contact BellSouth: http://www.bellsouth.com/contactus/index.html
You can also find out more about Working Assets Wireless and Working Assets Long Distance at http://www.workingassets.com.
You may also be interested in a new book we are publishing, entitled How Would A Patriot Act?, a compelling analysis of how the NSA's wiretapping fits into a larger scheme by the Bush Administration to violate Constitutional restrictions on executive authority in an unprecedented manner. Click here to find out more about the book.
As a telecommunications company, it is our special privilege to facilitate communications among our fellow citizens, to enable conversations on matters personal, commercial, social and political. It is therefore our special obligation to oppose warrantless interference into those communications, whatever the government's justification may be. We will keep you posted on new developments as they arise.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Michael Kieschnick, President
Working Assets
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:14 PM
I don't remember where I saw this, but Bell South, while cited in the USA Today story, is denying participation.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:16 PM
Go with Quest, if you're trying to be good, and they're available.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:24 PM
Here is more info. Working assets uses sprint, which may or may not have provided the phone number info to the nsa database.
>An important element of our relationship with Sprint is that while we utilize Sprint's underlying network on behalf of our customers, we do not give Sprint any of our customer information, including name, address, billing info.
Working Assets does provide the sending and destination phone numbers to sprint, or else sprint couldn't make the calls. This is the only info in the nsa database. Working Assets seems to be pretending, along with the bush administration, that reverse look-up is some sort of big deal.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:26 PM
East Coasters can't use Qwest. :-(
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:29 PM
Jesus. I just typed a smiley into an Unfogged comment. I have nothing against smileys, but they don't belong here. Please forget this ever happened.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:30 PM
T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are claiming non-participation as well.
Posted by hilker | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:38 PM
Working Assets seems to be pretending, along with the bush administration, that reverse look-up is some sort of big deal.
Does the reverse look up become a big deal if the information you need to look up in reverse is held by a noncooperating party like Working Assets?
It might be easy for the administration to move from information about time and phone numbers of a call to the person who placed the call if they can just get the data from a telco that is already providing them with a bunch of data. But is it harder if the account is just listed as a working assets number?
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:43 PM
I'd be very happy to believe that T-Mobile weren't participating since that's the company I use for my cell. (Goooo, Deutsche Telekom!)
Unfortunately, I just suspect their denial of "participation" means that whatever other company that holds their records participated.
I also suspect that if what Joe O. suggested above about W.A. is true for these telco companies that are rushing all over themselves to deny participation, it means that they've been assured that the truth about this program is not going to come out. Or at least not soon.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:45 PM
Does the reverse look up become a big deal if the information you need to look up in reverse is held by a noncooperating party like Working Assets?
I believe that it still isn't -- that reverse lookup is trivial regardless of who your phone company is. But I'm not 100% certain.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 2:49 PM
So, what, is it just Cingular? Must they provide terrible service and accommodate Dick Cheney?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-16-06 3:10 PM