Raising "Bell"

I am not going to write a letter to the telephone company (see Thursday's post). That's ridiculous.

Today I found a bunch of BellSouth's media relations contacts on their webpage and sent nearly every one of them an e-mail asking for a detailed accounting of how much of my customer or calling information was shared with whom and when, and suggested that I would no longer use BellSouth's services if this issue wasn't resolved to my satisfaction. In total, I e-mailed eight people, including their communications manager, the vice president for corporate communications, their director of media relations, their consumer services manager, their "reputation" manager, their "governmental affairs' spokesperson, and two people listed as Kentucky's media contacts for Bellsouth.

Then I found a webpage listing the Bellsouth management team, but no contact information was provided. However, I'm guessing the format of their e-mail addresses are the same as those of the media contacts, so I e-mailed Duane Ackerman, the chairman and CEO; Mark Feidler, the president and COO; and E.C. Roberts, Jr, Bellsouth's Kentucky president. So far none of the e-mails have bounced back, so hopefully they will all have a little message waiting for them when they return from their Memorial Day holiday. I'll keep you all posted as to any responses I get.

I did find the actual press release Bellsouth issued denying that there was any "contract" with the NSA and that no "bulk customer information" had been provided. I'm not interested in contracts or "bulk" information. I just want to know what happened to my information. I've e-mailed Jeff Brattcher, whose name is on the press release to find out more. According to the USA Today, when questioned as to whether any contracts exist between Bellsouth and the Defense Department, which oversees the NSA, Mr. Brattcher did not know the answer.