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Sen. Lindsey Graham said he doesn’t care about the federal government collecting his Verizon phone records because he’s not “talking to terrorists.”

Senators on both sides of the political aisle moved to defend the National Security Agency's collection of data from millions of Americans' phone records, saying it has been an ongoing practice that has kept the United States safe. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters on Thursday that The Guardian's revelation of the court order that compels Verizon to give data on millions of Americans' calls is a standard three-month renewal of a practice that has been ongoing for about seven years. Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee, also defended the practice. "It's called protecting America," she said, according...

The White House admitted this morning that the Guardian story last night was accurate — the NSA has been collecting metadata on Verizon’s phone calls for the last couple of months. Thanks to a secret court order, the phone records and location of calls by over 121 million customers now rest within the vaults of the NSA. And according to the Associated Press’ White House source, that’s no problem, because we can totally trust them to only do nice things with them, and not be evil and rotten like the previous administration who did pretty much the same thing: The...

It's no joke to the Obama administration, apparently. NBC's Pete Williams reported on Morning Joe earlier today that the Department of Justice will “definitely” open an investigation into the leak of the NSA’s data-mining efforts with Verizon — and who knows how many other telecoms — that ended up in the Guardian last night.CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Shocked? A “senior administration official” tells the Huffington Post that Williams’ report is, er … premature. Williams later dialed “definitely” back to “highly likely”: However, a senior administration official told The Huffington Post Thursday morning that it’s premature to suggest an...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper.</p> <p>The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.</p>

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack.

Those crazy American conspiracy theorists who live up trees with guns and drink their own pee don’t seem quite so crazy anymore. It turns out that a “secret court order” has empowered the US government to collect the phone records of millions of users of Verizon, one of the most popular telephone providers – a massive domestic surveillance programme and a shocking intrusion into the lives of others. For the first time in history, being an AT&T customer doesn’t seem such a bad thing after all. Of course, it isn't the first time that a US administration has spied on...

We know that the Department of Justice has been after phone records at the Associated Press and Fox News. We know they used a court order, one they attempted to keep secret, to obtain the emails of James Rosen. If those two items trouble you, this next item should make you start looking over your shoulder with more than a little trepidation. According to new reports, the Nationals Security Agency has a secret court order to collect phone records from Verizon. This court order is indiscriminate in nature, meaning they are collecting more than a few phone records. The Guardian...

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first...

<p>It’s beginning to look like the Obama administration is not at all interested in targeting domestic surveillance in any way that might attempt to mitigate its violations of privacy or increase its odds of actually finding people doing something illegal. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice cast a wide net in his search of AP phone logs, was the picture of intrusiveness in the James Rosen case, and now NSA is targeting millions of Americans for daily data collection?</p>

Putting heat on the big players is simply the name of the regulatory game -- at least if you're the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week, the DOJ makes it clear that it would like to put additional heat on dominant wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The FCC has a spectrum auction coming up for low-frequency bands. Frequencies under 1 GHz have greater propagation characteristics that allow signals to provide better coverage in rural areas and penetrate buildings more effectively. Because of this, low-frequency bands are an important part of...

A Verizon case study recently revealed that some people will go through great lengths in order to be able to watch cat videos all day. We first heard about it on TNW. The study documents the scam of a developer, who is referred to as Bob. He worked at a "critical infrastructure" company in the U.S. and started outsourcing his work to China underneath his company's nose, and would only pay those people less than one fifth of his six-figure salary. Here's how it was possible. Bob's company had started letting employees work remotely from home on certain days, so...

[Last week,] a deal between Verizon and a consortium of cable companies to free more spectrum for mobile broadband gained significant traction with the Department of Justice (DOJ) conditionally signing off on the deal and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announcing a vote of approval will come in short order. The agreement is an innovative move without much precedent. Verizon will purchase a significant chuck of spectrum from SpectrumCo, a group of cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner Cable, that covers 80 percent of Americans and is ideal for 4G mobile broadband. Moving forward, those cable companies can purchase...

Apple (AAPL) soon might bypass AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless, co-owned by Verizon Communications (T) and Vodafone (VOD), to offer its own mobile wireless service directly to customers, according to an industry observer. Veteran wireless industry strategist Whitey Bluestein made the bold prediction while speaking at the Informa MVNO Industry Summit in Barcelona, Spain, according to BGR. Apple has the distribution channels and customer base, with more than 250 million credit card numbers on file for iTunes users, to make the move, Bluestein said. But to do so, Apple itself would have to subsidize its iPhone for customers, Bluestein says....

If you havn't heard, Verizon is starting up a new fee. It was all over the radio yesterday, and now I am seeing it on the internet. I am currently with Verizon but I am off contract and using an old flip phone. I've been doing this purposely in anticipation of the day when I would kick Verizon to the curb. What Cell carrier are you with and what advantages do they offer? How many ways are there to get cell phone like service without using an actual cell phone(if any)? I'm thinking maybe VOIP on a wireless modem or...

Verizon Drops Muslim TV Channel Whose Owner Beheaded His General Manager Jim Edwards Febuary 24, 2012Bridges TV anchor Samatha Azzar Verizon will drop the Muslim cable channel Bridges TV on March 14, almost a year to the day after the channel's owner was sentenced to life in prison for beheading his wife, who was also the station's general manager. The murder occurred at Bridges TV's studio in 2009, six days after Aasiya Hassan told her abusive husband Muzzammil she was divorcing him. Muzzammil Hassan, the channel's founder, then lured his wife to the studio where he stabbed her 40 times...

Verizon Wireless to charge $2 for one-time payments by credit card, online or by phone. NEW YORK (AP) -- Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellphone company, said Thursday that it will start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards. The company said this "convenience fee" will be introduced Jan. 15.

Verizon Wireless plans to charge subscribers a new $2 fee every time they pay their wireless bills online or directly over the phone. A leaked memo from the company first reported by Engadget, showed some of the details of the new plan. And the blog Phone Scoop got confirmation from a Verizon representative on Thursday of the change. The new fee will go into effect starting January 15 and doesn't apply to customers paying their bills with an electronic check or who enroll in autopay using a credit, debit, or AT&T cards, according to the memo posted on Endgadget. Customers...

Verizon’s decision last week to purchase a chunk of 4G spectrum from cable companies is a huge development for both the future of television and wireless. The move frees up spectrum desperately needed for consumers, increases competition in the wireless industry, and emphasizes just how much “anytime, anywhere” is the future of TV and content consumption. Under the deal, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks will sell $3.6 billion worth of spectrum in the 700 MHz range – ideal for mobile broadband – to Verizon. This brings a notable amount of unused spectrum onto the market, covering over...

Verizon Communications Inc. has fired 40 employees involved in a contentious two-week labor strike over the summer for actions the company said ranged from acts of violence to making threats or racist comments. The employees, including 10 in Massachusetts, received letters over the weekend saying they were terminated for violating the company’s code of conduct while picketing against cuts in their contract. The 45,000 unionized Verizon workers along the East Coast who went on strike in August agreed to return to work under the old contract while both sides negotiated a new bargaining agreement. "We respect the rights of our...