This week, both BellSouth and Verizon refuted the USA Today article stating that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth handed over customer phone records to the National Security Agency. Clearly, as this issue deals with security and intelligence, there's probably more to the story than we know. But based on how it's being reported in the media and how it appears on the surface, there's a lot of questions and perhaps lessons that all communications companies can learn. For instance, the carefully worded statements issued by these companies don't necessarily clear up the issue. In fact, they raise more questions and make you wonder why it took over five days to determine if they did or did not participate in the NSA secret information-gathering program. Customers trust their telecom providers with a heck of a lot of personal information, and it's up to the provider to protect that information as much as possible. So it's reasonable for consumers to ask why does it take so long to figure out what private data has been shared and with whom? Even with the complexity of national security issues, you'd like to think that companies you trust enough to do business with would have a better handle on the security of their private records. However, this story has clearly taken on a life of its own through conflicting reports in blogs and news media, and through political posturing, making it difficult to know who's telling the truth.