Reply #14: You know what this tells me? NeuStar is a major hub of the privatized NSA

[leveymg]

In its multiple roles as registrar and monitor of internet addresses and area codes in the US and internationally, Neustar is ideally placed to tap all the traffic going through those systems.

How could the NSA resist? If Neustar didn't exist, the NSA would have to create it. Now, NSA is using its own proprietary (or, is it the other way around?) as a scapegoat -- a cutout, actually -- to shield its telcom partners from legal responsibility for warrantless wiretapping. How perfectly logical.

Of course, they artfully deny that their primary role is as an NSA tool by pointing to other revenue sources.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/060519/b3986068.html?.v=1
Based in Sterling, Va., NeuStar has developed a lucrative niche in the routing of millions of phone calls a day from one carrier to the next. "Nearly every telephone call placed is routed using NeuStar's system, and every telecommunications service provider is one of NeuStar's customers," the company's Web site states. NeuStar doesn't keep records of the calls it handles, a spokeswoman says.
Now NeuStar is seeking to profit from increased post-September 11 government pressure on telecoms to turn over data. Last year it acquired Fiducianet Inc., which helps phone company clients comply with "subpoenas, court orders, and law enforcement agency requests under electronic surveillance laws," according to a February, 2005, NeuStar press release. NeuStar says this part of its business accounts for less than 1% of total revenue. The company went public last June and reported 2005 revenue of $242.5 million.

NeuStar also provides services to federal agencies, but CEO Jeff Ganek says it hasn't done so for the NSA. The company has "absolutely nothing to do with any of the surveillance that's currently being discussed on Capitol Hill," Ganek stresses. All told, government contracts provide less than 2% of NeuStar's revenue, the company spokeswoman says. Government agencies sometimes seek NeuStar's help in identifying phone carriers that investigators plan to subpoena, she says, adding, "We do not provide any other information."