body-of-secrets-anatomy-of-the-ultra-secret-national-security-agency-2002

I countered with the observation that, by making the tapesavailable to the government, the companies had to know they wereproviding the wherewithal for the government to use them howeverit wanted. They had to bear some responsibility.The comment caused Tordella's temper to flare for the first timeduring our interview. The companies were not responsible, hereiterated, they were just doing what the government asked themto do because they were assured it was important to nationalsecurity. If their role were exposed by the Committee, it wouldsubject them to embarrassment, if not lawsuits, and it woulddiscourage other companies from cooperating with U.S. intelligencefor years to come. I told him that the Committee had yet todetermine how the whole matter would be treated, including theinvolvement of the companies. We parted amicably, but he clearlyhad misgivings about how this would turn out. His distrust ofpoliticians was manifest.Following Tordella's mea culpa, Snider began probing what thecompanies knew and when they knew it. Only one former employee, fromRCA Global, had been on the job at the beginning of the program. "Hesaid the Army had come to him and asked for the company'scooperation," said Snider, "and, by damn, that was enough for him." Anexecutive from ITT, on the other hand, "came to the depositionsurrounded by a phalanx of corporate lawyers who proceeded to object toevery question once I had gotten past the man's name and position."Snider said, "I pointed out to them that this was the United StatesSenate—not a court of law—and, if they wanted to object to the questionsI was asking I would have a senator come in and overrule every one oftheir objections. They piped down after that."When the committee's report was being drafted, Snider argued againstthe public release of the names of the companies. But the committee'schief counsel, Frederick A. O. Schwartz, disagreed. "The companies had aduty to protect the privacy of their customers," he said; "they deserved tobe exposed. If the Committee did not do it, it would become the subject ofcriticism itself." Pushed by Church, the committee voted to make itsreport public—over NSA's vehement objections, and to the greatdispleasure of its Republican members.President Gerald Ford telephoned Church and other senators,imploring them to reconsider. But Church was determined to go forwardand the next day, Lieutenant General Lew Allen, the NSA director, wasscheduled to testify before the committee in public session—a situationunprecedented for NSA. (The testimony on which the report was basedhad, of course, been given in closed session.) There, in the packed375