How the NSA allegedly bullied phone companies to spy on US citizens as far back as 2001

From Sharyl Attkisson.com (July 6):

March 13, 2016 — As soon as you set a passcode on your Apple iPhone, it sets off a feverish encryption process.

If a hacker tries to get data off the memory chips, it just looks like a scrambled mess.

But the same feature that's protecting your security, is keeping the FBI locked out of any secrets held in a terrorist's iPhone after he killed 14 people in California last December.

A federal judge has ordered Apple to create software to unlock the iPhone.

Apple is fighting the order.

Full Measure has an extraordinary story that predates the Apple conundrum. In fact, it predates what most understand to be the beginning of widespread surveillance of U.S. citizens after 9/11.

In October of 1997, Joe Nacchio was CEO of Qwest Communications, a major phone company out West.

One of his vice presidents told him he had an unexpected visitor.

Joe Nacchio: He came in and he said, 'Joe, we have a general downstairs who wants to meet you.' Which I thought was pretty surprising, because you know generals don't just drop by. It was a three-star.

Sharyl: Who was the general?

Nacchio: Well, his name is classified believe it or not. Who it was, I'm not, I'm still not allowed to disclose.

The general was from a U.S. intelligence agency interested in paying Qwest to use its cutting-edge global fiber optics network for classified programs.

But to learn more, Nacchio first needed a top-secret security clearance.

Nacchio: I had my clearance by January of 1998. We received that contract shortly thereafter and that led to us working with multiple intelligence agencies.

Nacchio's job as CEO of Qwest became steeped in a secretive world of classified meetings and clandestine government contracts. He's still barred from saying exactly what the projects involved.

Nacchio: So you could either put equipment in, you could either monitor, there's a whole bunch of things you can do.

Sharyl: As head of a telecom company, you were meeting with top spy agency people?

Nacchio: Yes. I'm allowed to say that I worked with four clandestine security agencies and senior government officials. [read more]

Abuse of power.