USA Today's Mistakes

USA Today's bombshell story on the NSA monitoring billions of domestic phone calls is turning out to be a dud.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Verizon Communications Inc. says it did not give the government records of millions of phone calls, joining fellow phone company BellSouth in disputing key assertions in a USA Today article.

The denials leave open the possibility that the National Security Agency requested customer calling data from long-distance companies like AT&T, Sprint and MCI in 2001, but not from companies that were mainly local phone companies, such as Verizon.

Verizon has not provided customer call data to the NSA, nor had it been asked to do so, the company said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday.

The statement came a day after BellSouth Corp. issued a similar denial.

"One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers' domestic calls," the statement read.

..."We're confident in our coverage of the phone database story," Anderson added, "but we won't summarily dismiss BellSouth's and Verizon's denials without taking a closer look."

USA Today sounds a lot like CBS did after the network aired the 60 Minutes II report on President Bush's National Guard service.

The intent was to throw the 2004 presidential election. Producer Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, among others, were so anxious to smear Bush that they overlooked the fact that the documents they based the story on were fraudulent.

To make matters worse, CBS defended the authenticity of the documents for twelve days before admitting that they couldn't verify their legitimacy. Delusional Dan Rather still won't admit that the records are fake.

USA Today would be wise to quickly print a retraction of its falsehoods.

Yes, the newspaper hoped to discredit Gen. Michael Hayden and derail his nomination to be the director of the CIA. But what with the phone companies disputing the story, it really would be best for USA Today to just give it up.

The longer they stand by their seriously flawed story, the worse off they will be.