They politely declined.

Huh.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three telecommunications companies have declined to tell Congress whether they gave U.S. intelligence agencies access to Americans' phone and computer records without court orders, citing White House objections and national security.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell "formally invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent AT&T from either confirming or denying" any details about intelligence programs, AT&T general counsel Wayne Watts wrote in a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Qwest and Verizon also declined to answer, saying the federal government has prohibited them from providing information, discussing or referring to any classified intelligence activities.

So, Congress isn't a part of the 'federal government'?

See, this is more of the same "trust us, you don't need your civil rights any longer" mentality from the White House. And it is the reason why the telecoms have been lobbying hard to get some retroactive immunity for allowing the wiretapping and email monitoring to occur. They know full well that they stepped in the shit bigtime, and that the class-action lawsuits awaiting them would really put the hurt on their profits. So they want an out, a "Get out of Jail Free" card.

Oh, and lest you think that all of this was just good patriotism on the part of the telecoms after 9/11, here's another tidbit from the AP report:

The Bush administration has said the companies cooperated in good faith because of their patriotism and desire to protect the country in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and should not be punished.

However, last week a Colorado court unsealed documents in the case of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, who was convicted of insider trading in April. Nacchio, who is appealing his conviction, maintains the National Security Agency asked Qwest to allow it to conduct electronic surveillance without a court order in February 2001, six months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Oh yeah, authoritarianism pre-dated the War on Terror. Surprise, surprise.

Jim Downey

(Via dKos.)