One of the nation's top political bloggers purchased the cell phone records of former presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark on Thursday to demonstrate the growing privacy concerns highlighted in a Chicago Sun-Times story last week.
John Aravosis, publisher of AMERICAblog.com, said he bought Clark's records for $89.95 from celltolls.com. Aravosis said he obtained a list of 100 calls made on Clark's cell phone over three days in November -- no questions asked.
Aravosis, whose liberal blog is critical of the Bush administration, said he called Clark's cell phone Thursday to make sure the former NATO supreme commander was informed Aravosis bought his records. Aravosis did not publish the numbers on his blog.
"I am not doing this to be mean, I am doing this to help people," Aravosis said. "I supported [Clark's] campaign when he was running in the beginning.
"This shows nobody's records are untouchable. . . . Wouldn't it be interesting to know who [Sun-Times columnist] Bob Novak was calling in the month that [CIA agent] Valerie Plame's name came out? How about [U.S. Attorney] Patrick Fitzgerald's phone calls?"
Clark said legal remedies are needed to stop companies from selling telephone records.
"When I learned today that my phone records were purchased for less than a hundred dollars I joined millions of Americans who worry about the invasion of their privacy that seems to be the growing price of technology," Clark said. "People should be able to trust that their privacy is being respected and protected by everyone from the government to our internet and mobile phone service providers. Clearly, this is not the case."
Clark urged consumers to contact their senators to urge passage of a law to order the Federal Trade Commission to "restore integrity to the system and give people back a reasonable degree of privacy."....
Read the rest of the article here, it also talks about the MoveOn action yesterday (click here to sign their petition), legislation etc. Here's our post about buying Wes Clark's phone records. And can I just say, General Clark was a real champ with the quotes he gave, let alone his willingness to be quoted on this.
