Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 17 -- After the new revelations that AT&T gave access to the US government to mass volumes of communications, including from the United Nations, Inner City Press on August 17 asked the UN if in doing so, AT&T would have violated its contracts with the UN.

  UN Associate Spokesperson Vannina Maestracci told Inner City Press, on camera, that the UN's contracts with AT&T -- with public money -- are not public and will not be disclosed. Pressed, she would not answer if spying would violate the provisions of the "confidential" UN contracts.

  Inner City Press has since put the request in writing, to Maestracci and the lead spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:

  I asked if AT&T providing access to the US government to UN email and communications would violate the terms of its procurements and contracts with the UN and was told the contracts would not be public, and no comment. This is a reiterated request, on deadline, with for your convenience in providing an answer some sample contracts:

AT&T CORP.    United States of America    Telecommunication Equipment & Services    Telecommunications    $122,745.00    PS-21137    13 February 2013    N/A
AT&T CORP.    United States of America    Maintenance & Repair Services    Office, computer and communication equipment maintenance and repair    $48,912.00    PS-21452    03 April 2013    N/A
AT&T CORP.    United States of America    Telecommunication Equipment & Services    Communications    $69,320.00    PS-21518    01 April 2013    N/A
AT&T CORP.    United States of America    Telecommunication Equipment & Services    Telecommunications    $122,735.00    PS-21561

  While Maestracci said, on camera, "You're so not interested in the answers," Inner City Press is quite interested in the answers, so far not given, and in the contracts between the UN and AT&T. Watch this site.

Back on October 23, 2014 when UN human rights rapporteur Ben Emmerson held a press conference on his report on mass surveillance on October 23, Inner City Press asked him to review the Obama administration's and its Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's response to the spying revelations by Edward Snowden and others, and if any dangers are posed by the “foreign fighters” resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in September. (The latter question was not answered.)

  Emmerson began diplomatically, calling the PCLOB's reports “worth reading,” but then said that the debate and proposal legislation is confined to the “detailed fringes.” He said the key question is whether the right to privacy simply will not apply to the means of communications most in use today, given government's appetite for surveillance.Video here and embedded below.

  He said as long as governments -- like that of the United States -- won't disclose their surveillance programs, the debate is subject to “conceptual censorship.”

  The UN set aside the first question for the old UN Correspondents Association, which asked a softball question leading Emmerson to reply, “read the report.” (It has been online for some time, here.)

 The new Free UN Coalition for Access objects to set-asides, and to UNCA's function as the UN's Censorship Alliance, having tried to order Inner City Press to remove factual articles from the Internet, and then getting Google to block from its search leaked copies of anti-Press complaints filed with the UN, here. We'll have more on this.

First Look's "The Intercept" has revealed that the US National Security Agency and FBI spied on at least five Americans, all Muslims, and used place-holder code names like "Raghead," click here for that.