The CIA has reportedly paid AT&T at least $10 million a year to hand over customers' phone records as part of multiple international counter-terrorism probes.
According to a New York Times investigation, the mobile service provider has contributed information under a voluntary contract, meaning that the government has not forced the company to slide them information.
AT&T has not given a statement on the report, but did tell the Times that the government's routine payments were par for the course in the numerous cases of legal collection of data.
The current arrangement allows the CIA to request certain phone numbers from AT&T for overseas terrorism suspects. AT&T then combs through its database to find records that might help the feds name some outside threats to the U.S. and their accomplices. A large number of the information provided by AT&T are from calls made between two foreign phone numbers, the Times reported.
Officials from the phone company told the Times that AT&T doesn't give any information on the identities of Americans making calls within the United States, and that phone numbers themselves are left anonymous when records are printed.
"We ensure that we maintain customer information in compliance with the laws of the United States and other countries where information may be maintained," AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel reported in a statement, adding that each of the CIA's requests for information were handled within proper legal channels. "Like all telecom providers, we routinely change governments for producing the information provided."
The New York Times' report is one of many stories of government spying that surfaced after former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden revealed documents detailing the United States government's widespread collection of Internet and telephone information.
