Sent to AT&T/SBC Abuse/Spam customer service on 4/13/06:

A recent article in the N.Y. Times states that AT&T (which has recently purchased or merged with SBC) cooperated with the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2003 to install equipment capable of "vacuum-cleaner surveillance" of e-mail messages and other Internet traffic--and even did this WITHOUT A WARRANT! As an unwilling customer of AT&T (I signed up with SBC and was never asked if I agreed with the merger) what assurances can AT&T offer to guarantee my and your other customers' privacy? To put it more bluntly, how do we know that you won't sell out your customers again?

Also, I would appreciate a real answer, not one filled with corporate niceties like "We appreciate your concerns and that you took the time to convey them to us. We can assure you that it was never our intention to violate our customers’ privacy and can assure you that in the future we..., BLAH BLAH BLAH."

Please know that if I don't receive a straight answer to this and an assurance of privacy to which I am satisfied, I will react accordingly.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my email. I know that you're busy and certainly appreciate any effort to help me. BLAH BLAH.

Steve

The N.Y. Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/us/nationalspecial3/07spy.html?_r=5&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=login:

More coverage here: http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/ATT_tech_outs_NSA_spy_room.asp and http://www.effaustin.org/