The telephone companies keep records on telephone contacts (which number
> called which number) without going into the substance of the
> conversations. It's a "Point A to Point B" record. Is this "spying" by
> the telcoms? No. Millions of records are kept, probably without either
> your specific permission or knowledge that they keep every contact you
> make, or is made to you.
This may be true of toll calls, but why would they keep records, or even make a record, of local calls which in most parts of the country are flat rate unlimited? These records are of no value to the telco nor to the customer. Once a local call is taken down (disconnected) there is no reason to record the historical fact.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you that since ESS became the most common switching system, telco has had and maintains records on _all_ calls. Whether or not the calls are billed for or not (i.e. 'local' or 'toll'), there still is a record kept of them for whatever reason, for reasons like CALEA and other things. PAT]