Wyden warns telcos still leave Senate in the dark after Trump DOJ snooping scandal

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile US failed to set up systems to notify lawmakers when government snoops came calling for their phone records - a contractual obligation that went ignored until recently, according to US Senator Ron Wyden.

The Oregon Democrat on Wednesday sent a letter to his fellow lawmakers urging them to choose wireless carriers that provide notice of government snooping and warning against this type of "unchecked surveillance."

"An investigation by my staff revealed that until recently, Senators have been kept in the dark about executive branch surveillance of Senate phones, because the three major phone carriers — AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile — failed to establish systems to notify offices about surveillance requests, as required by their Senate contracts," Wyden wrote [PDF]. 

One of the three carriers admitted to Wyden's office that it handed over Senate-related phone data to law enforcement without providing the required notice, a failure the letter alleges ...