An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: U.S. cable Internet customers are using an average of 268.7GB per month, and 4.1 percent of households use at least 1TB, according to new research by the vendor OpenVault. Households that use at least 1TB a month are at risk of paying overage fees because of the 1TB data caps imposed by Comcast and other ISPs. Terabyte users nearly doubled year over year, as just 2.1 percent of households hit the 1TB mark last year, according to OpenVault. OpenVault found that households that face data caps use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped users, suggesting that cable customers limit their Internet usage when they face the prospect of overage fees. According to OpenVault, the caps can help cable companies avoid major network upgrades.

Specifically, "OpenVault's 2018 data also shows that average usage for households with flat-rate pricing was 282.1GB/HH, more than 9 percent higher than the 258.2GB/HH average usage for households on usage-based billing (UBB) plans," OpenVault wrote. Stated another way, customers facing caps and overage fees use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped customers. Un-capped customers are, naturally, more likely to exceed a terabyte. "The percentage of flat-rate (non-UBB) households exceeding 1TB of usage was 4.82 percent, a full percentage point higher than the 3.81 percent of UBB households who exceeded the 1TB threshold," OpenVault said. The 268.7GB average household data used in December 2018 was "up from 226.4GB/HH [household] at the end of June 2018 and a 33.3 percent increase over the YE 2017 average of 201.6GB/HH," OpenVault said. Median usage was 145.2GB in December 2018, "up from 116.4GB/HH in June 2018 and a 40 percent increase over the YE 2017 median of 103.6GB/HH," the company also said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's cable division spent 3 percent less on capital expenditures last year, despite promises that the repeal of net neutrality rules would boost broadband network investment. Comcast's cable division spent $7.95 billion on capital expenditures during calendar year 2017, but that fell to $7.72 billion in the 12 months ending on December 31, 2018. Comcast's overall capital expenditures went up 2.3 percent, from $9.6 billion in 2017 to $9.8 billion in 2018. But that company-wide capital expenditure number includes the Comcast-owned NBCUniversal, which spent $1.7 billion in 2018, a 15.2 percent increase, "primarily reflecting investment at Theme Parks," Comcast said.

The cable capital expenditure statistic thus provides a more accurate picture of whether Comcast increased or decreased investment in its broadband network. Cable capital expenditures as a percentage of Comcast's cable revenue dropped from 15 percent in 2017 to 14 percent in 2018. Comcast's network spending should have risen in 2018 if predictions from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Comcast had been correct. Pai's net neutrality repeal took effect in June 2018. But the vote to repeal net neutrality rules was in December 2017, and Pai claimed in February 2018 that the repeal was already causing increased broadband investment. While Comcast's cable capital expenditures did rise year over year in the fourth quarter, from $2.15 billion to $2.32 billion, it wasn't enough to offset the full-year decline. Ars Technology also notes: "The corporate tax cut implemented as 2018 began also didn't stop job cuts at Comcast and AT&T, despite promises that the tax cut would create new jobs."

After AT&T and T-Mobile said they would stop selling their customers' phone location data to third parties, Sprint has followed suit. From a report: Last week, Motherboard revealed that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint had been selling their customers' real-time location data that ultimately ended up in the hands of bounty hunters and people unauthorized to handle it. Motherboard found this by purchasing the capability to geolocate a phone for $300 on the black market. In response, AT&T and T-Mobile said they were stopping all sales of location data to third parties.

Nearly a week later Sprint has committed to doing the same, in a statement to Motherboard. "As a result of recent events, we have decided to end our arrangements with data aggregators," a Sprint spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. Sprint did not provide a timeline of when this data access selling may end, but T-Mobile and AT&T have previously said their processes will be complete in March.

An anonymous reader shares a report: On Thursday, AT&T announced it was stopping the sale of its customers' real-time location data to all third parties, in response to a Motherboard investigation showing how data from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint trickled down through a complex network of companies until eventually landing the hands of bounty hunters and people unauthorized to handle it. To verify the existence of this trade, Motherboard paid $300 on the black market to successfully locate a phone.

Google, whose Google Fi program offers phone, text, and data services that use T-Mobile and Sprint network infrastructure in the United States, told Motherboard that it asked those companies to not share its customers' location data with third parties. "We have never sold Fi subscribers' location information," a Google spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement late on Thursday. "Google Fi is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) and not a carrier, but as soon as we heard about this practice, we required our network partners to shut it down as soon as possible." Google did not say when it made this a requirement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Tuesday, Motherboard revealed that major American telcos T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint are selling customer location data of users in an unregulated market that trickles down to bounty hunters and people not authorized to handle such information. In our investigation, we purchased the real-time location of a cell phone from a bail industry source for $300, pinpointing it to a specific part of Queens, New York. The issue potentially impacts hundreds of millions of cell phone users in the United States, with customers likely unaware that their location data is being sold and resold through multiple companies, with even the telcos sometimes having little idea where it ends up and how it is used.

Now, Senators and a commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have urged government bodies to investigate, with some calling for regulation that would ensure customers are properly made aware of how their data is being sold. "The American people have an absolute right to the privacy of their data, which is why I'm extraordinarily troubled by reports of this system of repackaging and reselling location data to unregulated third party services for potentially nefarious purposes. If true, this practice represents a legitimate threat to our personal and national security," Senator Kamala Harris told Motherboard in a statement. Harris explicitly called on the FCC to investigate the issue. "The FCC needs to immediately investigate these serious security concerns and take the necessary steps to protect the privacy of American consumers," she said. On Tuesday, FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted: "The FCC needs to investigate. Stat."

"It shouldn't be that you pay a few hundred dollars to a bounty hunter and then they can tell you in real time where a phone is within a few hundred meters. That's not right. This entire ecosystem needs some oversight," she added on MSNBC's Velshi & Ruhle show on Wednesday. "I think we've got to get to this fast."

Senators Mark Warner and Ron Wyden are also calling on the FCC to act.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: AT&T is preparing for yet another significant round of layoffs according to internal documents obtained by Motherboard. The staff reductions come despite billions in tax breaks and regulatory favors AT&T promised would dramatically boost both investment and job creation. A source at AT&T who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly told Motherboard that company leadership is planning what it's calling a "geographic rationalization" and employment "surplus" reduction that will consolidate some aspects of AT&T operations in 10 major operational hubs in New York, California, Texas, New Jersey, Washington State, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, and Washington, DC. A spokesperson for AT&T confirmed to Motherboard that it is planning to "adjust" its workforce.

While AT&T has yet to come up with a final, formal internal tally for this new round of looming layoffs, AT&T employees worry the staff reductions could prove to be significant, especially outside of these core areas. Managers are being briefed on the plans now, though AT&T isn't expected to formally announce the specifics until they're finalized later this month. The staff reductions were first announced in an internal memo sent to managers last Friday by Jeff McElfresh, President, Technology & Operations at AT&T. This news comes in the wake of AT&T receiving a $20 billion windfall last quarter courtesy of the Trump administration tax breaks. That's in addition to the friendlier environment AT&T finds itself in as a result of the Trump administration's assault on consumer protections ranging from net neutrality to broadband privacy guidelines. "To win in this new world, we must continue to lower costs and keep getting faster, leaner, and more agile," McElfresh told employees. "This includes reductions in our organization, and others across the company, which will begin later this month and take place over several months."

Verizon and T-Mobile are calling out AT&T for starting a shady marketing tactic that labeled its 4G network as a 5G network. "In an open letter, in which AT&T is not named directly, Verizon says in part 'the potential to over-hype and under-deliver on the 5G promise is a temptation that the wireless industry must resist,'" reports TechCrunch. Meanwhile, T-Mobile directly called out AT&T, tweeting a short video of someone putting a sticky note reading "9G" on top of their iPhone's LTE icon. The Verge reports: The promise comes right as AT&T has started to roll out updates doing exactly that: changing the "LTE" icon in the corner of select phones into an icon reading "5G E." One might assume that a "5G E" connection is the same thing as a "5G" connection, but it's not. AT&T is just pretending that the faster portions of its LTE network are 5G and is trying to get a head start on the 5G marketing race by branding it "5G Evolution." T-Mobile isn't happy about the marketing nonsense either. Its CTO, Neville Ray, wrote that AT&T was "duping customers."

Verizon says it's "calling on the broad wireless industry to commit to labeling something 5G only if new device hardware is connecting to the network using new radio technology to deliver new capabilities" (emphasis Verizon's). Kyle Malady, Verizon's chief technical officer, says Verizon will lead by example and that "a clear, consistent, and simple understanding of 5G" is needed so consumers don't have to "maneuver through marketing double-speak or technical specifications." Malady says Verizon will "not call our 4G network a 5G network if customers don't experience a performance or capability upgrade that only 5G can deliver." But that isn't the same thing as saying "we won't label our network 5G unless it's 5G." In fact, if you turn that sentence into a positive statement, it says "we will only call our 4G network a 5G network if it delivers a 5G-like experience." The Verge notes that Verizon "has also been misleading about its jump into 5G." Last year, Big Red bragged about launching the "world's first commercial 5G service," even though "it wasn't mobile; it was home internet service that just happened to be delivered wirelessly during the final stretch to a subscriber's home; and it didn't use the global 5G standard -- it used a rival 5G standard created by Verizon."

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers' location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country, an investigation by news outlet Motherboard has found. From the report: Nervously, I gave a bounty hunter a phone number. He had offered to geolocate a phone for me, using a shady, overlooked service intended not for the cops, but for private individuals and businesses. Armed with just the number and a few hundred dollars, he said he could find the current location of most phones in the United States. The bounty hunter sent the number to his own contact, who would track the phone. The contact responded with a screenshot of Google Maps, containing a blue circle indicating the phone's current location, approximate to a few hundred metres. [...] The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone's whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks.

[...] Motherboard's investigation shows just how exposed mobile networks and the data they generate are, leaving them open to surveillance by ordinary citizens, stalkers, and criminals, and comes as media and policy makers are paying more attention than ever to how location and other sensitive data is collected and sold. The investigation also shows that a wide variety of companies can access cell phone location data, and that the information trickles down from cell phone providers to a wide array of smaller players, who don't necessarily have the correct safeguards in place to protect that data. "Blade Runner, the iconic sci-fi movie, is set in 2019. And here we are: there's an unregulated black market where bounty-hunters can buy information about where we are, in real time, over time, and come after us. You don't need to be a replicant to be scared of the consequences," Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, told Motherboard.

Ron Wyden, a senator from Oregon, said in a statement, "This is a nightmare for national security and the personal safety of anyone with a phone."

AT&T's DirecTV, Dish, and Comcast are all planning to raise their rates again in the new year, "a move that could boost revenue but risks alienating subscribers who have been ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in record numbers," reports Dallas News. From the report: Cable and satellite providers are hoping to squeeze more money from consumers who remain loyal to their packages with hundreds of channels, Philip Cusick, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, said in a note this week, even though "this strategy could accelerate video sub declines." The latest price increases come as cord-cutting accelerates. In the third quarter, the TV industry saw its largest ever rate of decline, with subscribers shrinking by 3.7 percent, according to MoffettNathanson LLC. Consumers are dropping traditional TV for lower-cost online options like Netflix Inc. and slimmer TV options from Hulu and YouTube.

DirecTV is raising rates on all English-language video packages by $3 to $8 a month while hiking fees for regional sports networks by $1 to $1.90 in most markets. Dish said it's increasing prices for English-language video packages by $3 to $5 a month. Altice USA, the fourth-largest cable operator, recently raised rates by 3 percent on Optimum subscribers. Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, is raising its fee for regional sports networks by $1.50 on average and its fee for broadcast channels by $2 a month, according to Cusick. Charter Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. cable provider, recently boosted its monthly fee for a set-top box by about 50 cents and its broadcast channel fee by about $1. Charter operates as Spectrum in Dallas-Fort Worth.

As promised, AT&T has updated three smartphones from Samsung and LG to make them show 5G connectivity logos, even though none of them are capable of connecting to 5G networks. From a report: Now, when the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, LG V30, or LG V40 are connected to portions of AT&T's LTE network that have received some speed-boosting updates, they'll show an icon that says "5G E" instead of "LTE." That "E" in the "5G" logo is supposed to tip you off that this isn't real 5G -- just some marketing nonsense. But there's no way of knowing that just from looking at the logo. The "E" is smaller than the rest of the icon. And even if you do learn that "5G E" stands for "5G Evolution," it isn't immediately clear what that means.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: AT&T customers will start to see a 5G logo appear in the corner of their smartphone next year -- not because they're using a 5G phone connected to a 5G network, but because AT&T is going to start pretending its most advanced 4G LTE tech is 5G. According to FierceWireless, AT&T will display an icon reading "5G E" on newer phones that are connected to LTE in markets where the carrier has deployed a handful of speed boosting -- but still definitively 4G -- technologies. The "E," displayed smaller than the rest of the logo, refers to "5G Evolution," the carrier's term for networks that aren't quite 5G but are still faster than traditional LTE. AT&T pulled the same stunt during the transition to LTE. "The company rolled out a speed-boosting 3G tech called HSPA+, then got all of its phone partners -- even Apple -- to show a '4G' logo when on that kind of connection," reports The Verge.

An anonymous reader shares a column: AT&T may be meeting its self-imposed deadline to launch "5G" service in 12 cities this week, but based on what the company has said -- and not said -- I can only conclude that its 5G network isn't actually ready for prime time. Yet. The problem is straightforward: As of today, 5G's only benefit over 4G is speed, and AT&T has gone silent on the speed of its 5G network. Verizon promised 300Mbps to 1Gbps speeds before launching its 5G home broadband network in October, then exceeded its minimum guarantees.

By contrast, AT&T made no commitment to network speeds (or latency) in its 5G launch press release, nor does it offer performance estimates in its consumer 5G web pages. Seeking to quantify the network's performance, I reached out to the normally responsive AT&T to ask about a report that its 5G+ network would have real-world speeds of 140Mbps, despite theoretical peak speeds that have alternately been pegged at 979Mbps or 1.2Gbps, depending on source. There was no response.

AT&T said Tuesday its network is now live in parts of 12 cities across the United States, with the first mobile 5G device arriving on Friday, December 21. From a report: According to an AT&T spokesperson, the company's 5G network is already up and running in parts of the previously promised dozen cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio, and Waco. However, the first consumer device that will be able to access that network, Netgear's Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot, will become available just ahead of the Christmas holiday.

The company also revealed that it will be using the name "5G+" for the part of its network that will use millimeter wave spectrum and technologies, and it said the Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot will run on that 5G+ network. [...] AT&T's 5G pricing is also interesting. Like Verizon, AT&T is offering an initial promotion that makes the hardware and 5G service cheap up front, with new pricing set to follow later. Early adopters from the consumer, small business, and business markets will be able to "get the mobile 5G device and wireless data at no cost for at least 90 days," AT&T says, with new pricing beginning in spring 2019. At that point, the Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot will cost $499 outright, with 15GB of 5G service priced at $70 per month, which AT&T calls "comparable" to its current $50 monthly charge for 10GB of 4G data.

The FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), which includes members like AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs and industry representatives, is proposing a tax on websites to pay for rural broadband. Ars Technica reports: If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising. The tax would also apply to any provider of broadband access, such as cable or wireless operators. The collected money would go into state rural broadband deployment funds that would help bring faster Internet access to sparsely populated areas. Similar universal service fees are already assessed on landline phone service and mobile phone service nationwide. Those phone fees contribute to federal programs such as the FCC's Connect America Fund, which pays AT&T and other carriers to deploy broadband in rural areas.

The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code. An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only. The BDAC model code doesn't need approval from FCC commissioners -- "it is adopted by the BDAC as a model code for the states to use, at their discretion," Ajit Pai's spokesperson told Ars. As for how big the proposed taxes would be, the model code says that states "shall determine the appropriate State Universal Service assessment methodology and rate consistent with federal law and FCC policy."

William P. Barr, President Trump's pick to become the nation's next Attorney General, is a former chief lawyer for Verizon who has opposed net neutrality rules for more than a decade. "Barr, who served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush from 1991-93, warned in 2006 that 'network neutrality regulations would discourage construction of high-speed internet lines that telephone and cable giants are spending tens of billions of dollars to deploy,'" reports Fast Company. From the report: Barr's appointment would be welcome news for at least three major internet service providers and a trade organization -- including Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association -- that have spent more than $600 million lobbying on Capitol Hill since 2008, according to a MapLight analysis. Their lobbying on a key issue was rewarded last December, when the Federal Communications Commission, led by another former Verizon lawyer-turned-Trump appointee, overruled popular opinion by voting to scrap rules that banned internet companies from giving preferential treatment to particular websites or charging consumers more for different types of content.

Barr's previous employment with Verizon foreshadows credibility problems similar to those faced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, also a former Verizon lawyer. Barr, however, is likely to face even more scrutiny stemming from his role as a member of WarnerMedia's board of directors. The entertainment conglomerate, which includes HBO, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, was created in the aftermath of AT&T's 2016 purchase of Time Warner Inc. [...] Barr has argued that net neutrality rules will discourage internet service providers from investing in high-end delivery systems, such as fiber-optic networks. "Companies are going to make these kinds of investments only if they see an opportunity to earn a return that is commensurate with the risk, and only if they have the freedom to innovate, differentiate, and make commercially sensible decisions that they need to compete and win in the market," he said at a 2006 Federalist Society convention. Barr also claimed that 81 percent of the nation's roughly 40,000 zip codes have three or more choices of broadband providers. A PC Magazine study last year found that to be untrue, with only 30 percent of 20,000 zip codes having three or more broadband options.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Streaming TV services offered by companies like Hulu and AT&T are testing the waters for a new type of advertising called "pause ads." The idea behind pause ads is that instead of facing forced commercial breaks at specified interludes, users would be more accepting of ads that play when they choose to pause a show for a bit while they do something else. Hulu says it plans to launch pause ads in 2019, but not much else was given in the way of details regarding which of its numerous streaming plans will include the new type of commercial. The plan likely to see pause ads is Hulu With Limited Commercials, which interjects a few ads throughout a show's runtime, similar to live TV, but again this hasn't been confirmed.

AT&T cited similar interest in pause ads, stating that it also plans to launch technology in 2019 that plays a video when a user pauses a TV show. For both companies, it's unclear exactly how long these ads will run for, and if you'll be able to immediately cancel them out by simply hitting the play button and resuming your TV show. According to Hulu vice president and head of advertising platforms Jeremy Helfand, pause ads will not be home to longform advertisements, but will instead focus on commercials where advertisers "have seconds" to deliver a message effectively. Over the next three years, Hulu expects "more than half" of its advertising revenue to come from these so-called non-disruptive experiences.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The telecom giant has announced the end of its prorated credits for some subscribers who cancel a service in the middle of a billing period. AT&T bills service for DirecTV, U-verse TV, AT&T Phone, AT&T Internet, and Fixed Wireless Internet in advance. It previously offered the option to receive a credit for any unused days in a month when a subscriber canceled before the next billing period, but it will now force many customers to ride out the month with nothing in return. The change goes into effect on January 14, 2019, in most states, so if you're considering a change, it's time to plan ahead. If you're even one day into your billing month, you'll presumably have to pay for the full period, according to the company's new policy. You get to keep the service you don't want for that period of time, but, of course, you're canceling because you don't want it. The change will not apply to customers in California, Illinois, New York and, in some instances, Michigan.

An anonymous reader shares a report: "We've launched our last satellite," John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, said in a meeting with analysts on Nov. 29. The AT&T executive effectively declared the end of the satellite-TV era with that statement. AT&T owns DirecTV, the US's largest satellite company -- and second largest TV provider overall, behind Comcast. DirecTV will continue offering satellite-TV service -- it had nearly 20 million satellite video subscribers as of September, per company filings. But the company will focus on growing its online video business instead, Donovan said.

It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they'd get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own.

AT&T will alert a little more than a dozen customers within the next week or so that their service will be terminated due to copyright infringement, news outlet Axios reported, citing sources familiar with its plans. From the report: It's the first time AT&T has discontinued customer service over piracy allegations since having shaped its own piracy policies last year, which is significant given it just became one of America's major media companies. AT&T owns a content network after its purchase of Time Warner earlier this year, an entity now called WarnerMedia. Content networks are typically responsible for issuing these types of allegations to internet service providers (ISPs) for them to address with their customers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: An unexpected declaration by whistleblower Edward Snowden filed in court [last] week adds a new twist in a long-running lawsuit against the NSA's surveillance programs. The case, filed by the EFF a decade ago, seeks to challenge the government's alleged illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of Americans, who are largely covered under the Fourth Amendment's protections against warrantless searches and seizures. It's a big step forward for the case, which had stalled largely because the government refused to confirm that a leaked document was authentic or accurate. News of the surveillance broke in 2006 when an AT&T technician Mark Klein revealed that the NSA was tapping into AT&T's network backbone. He alleged that a secret, locked room -- dubbed Room 641A -- in an AT&T facility in San Francisco where he worked was one of many around the U.S. used by the government to monitor communications -- domestic and overseas. President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to secretly wiretap Americans' communications shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Much of the EFF's complaint relied on Klein's testimony until 2013, when Snowden, a former NSA contractor, came forward with new revelations that described and detailed the vast scope of the U.S. government's surveillance capabilities, which included participation from other phone giants -- including Verizon (TechCrunch's parent company). Snowden's signed declaration, filed on October 31, confirms that one of the documents he leaked, which the EFF relied heavily on for its case, is an authentic draft document written by the then-NSA inspector general in 2009, which exposed concerns about the legality of the Bush's warrantless surveillance program -- Stellar Wind -- particularly the collection of bulk email records on Americans. "I read its contents carefully during my employment," he said in his declaration. "I have a specific and strong recollection of this document because it indicated to me that the government had been conducting illegal surveillance."