ICYMI: John Sununu Voted for the Patriot Act, Then Cashed In and Made Millions

ICYMI: John Sununu Voted for the Patriot Act, Then Cashed In and Made Millions

In Case You Missed It, new reporting from MeidasTouch News shows John Sununu “voted for the USA Patriot Act, then later made millions off of telecom companies who used provisions in the Patriot Act to spy on Americans.” 

In office, Sununu authored and voted for bills that did not sunset a provision that “allowed the National Security Agency to collect bulk metadata on Americans’ telephone records.” After losing reelection, Sununu cashed in by joining a “massive D.C. lobbying firm” as a “senior advisor with a focus on telecommunications.” 

Sununu also made over a million dollars as a Co-Chair of “the telecom industry lobbying arm” Broadband for America and “spoke at a hearing in the U.S. Senate on behalf of his client AT&T,” a telecommunications company that “developed lucrative partnerships with both the NSA and CIA to provide billions of email and phone records of Americans” using the section Sununu “prevented from sunsetting while he was in the Senate.”

Read more below: 

MeidasTouch News: John Sununu Made Millions Lobbying for Telecom Companies After Voting to Let Them Spy on Americans

• Republican U.S. Senate candidate from New Hampshire, John E. Sununu voted for the USA Patriot Act, then later made millions off of telecom companies who used provisions in the Patriot Act to spy on Americans. Sununu, who was once called the “Architect Of The Surveillance State,” went right through the revolving door of the Senate into lobbying for the very same companies he helped to secure extremely lucrative contracts with the U.S. Government.
• [...] One infamous provision of the Patriot Act allowed the government to operate outside the 4th Amendment to require telephone companies to secretly turn over call records of Americans. Section 215 of the Patriot Act allowed the National Security Agency to collect bulk metadata on Americans’ telephone records.
• After voting for the Patriot Act in its original version, in 2005 Sununu blocked an effort to reform the Patriot Act to sunset the bulk collection provision. The following year he authored a renewed version of the law that kept bulk collection in place while loosening requirements that businesses only turn over data “relevant” to investigations of terrorism and espionage.
• Congressional Democrats opposed the bill because it left open a vague interpretation to what constituted a “relevant” record, meaning the government could access communications records of Americans for a multitude of supposed reasons, not strictly limited to judicially sanctioned counter-terrorism investigations.
• After losing re-election in 2008, Sununu went on to serve as an honorary Co-Chair of Broadband for America, the telecom industry lobbying arm, between 2011 and 2015. Broadband for America listed telecom giant AT&T as a member. Sununu received $1,412,645 for his time as Co-Chair of Broadband for America.
• In that role in 2013, Sununu spoke at a hearing in the U.S. Senate on behalf of his client AT&T, touting the telecom giant’s “world class” broadband networks, and going so far as to encourage investment.
• Around this same period, the massive D.C. lobbying firm Akin Gump reported $3.94 million in earnings lobbying on behalf of AT&T, while Sununu was listed as an Akin Gump senior advisor with a focus on telecommunications. That role came with a $372,000 per-year salary, according to Glass Door. AT&T was still in the Akin Gump portfolio when it acquired Time Warner, which was first announced in 2016 and finalized in 2018. Sununu, probably not so coincidentally had also served on the board of Time Warner Cable between 2011 and 2016.
• That merger raised eyebrows because it gave AT&T access to Time Warner’s customer data in a post Patriot Act United States. Sununu in that period was on the board of Time Warner, lobbying for AT&T, and serving as an advisor to Akin Gump, all at roughly the same time as this major media merger occurred between AT&T and Time Warner.
• Sununu’s scope of work with Akin Gump was never disclosed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which raises the likelihood that Sununu was engaged in so-called “shadow lobbying,” where former members of Congress are paid as advisors to major lobbying firms without registering as actual lobbyists under the LDA. Sununu said his position at Akin Gump allowed him to “leverage” his “private-sector and public-sector experience” in telecommunications.
• Between 2003 and 2013, after the passage of the Patriot Act, AT&T developed lucrative partnerships with both the NSA and CIA to provide billions of email and phone records of Americans in accordance with Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the same section that Sununu had prevented from sunsetting while he was in the Senate.
• AT&T reportedly showed “extreme willingness” to hand user’s personal information and communications to the government through its “highly collaborative” partnership with the NSA. According to reporting from ProPublica, the NSA in-turn budgeted $188 million for its AT&T partnership, more than twice as much as the next most expensive line item. At one point, according to reporting from PBS, AT&T was sharing an astonishing 1.1 billion cell phone call records per day with the NSA.
• Telecomminications companies got rich through government contracts spying on Americans under authority from the USA Patriot Act. Sununu voted for it, prevented it from sunsetting, and expanded it, then when he left the Senate he made millions as a lobbyist for those same companies.
• John E. Sununu is running for U.S. Senate again for the state of New Hampshire on November 3rd against Democratic challenger Congressman Chris Pappas. Incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, who beat Sununu in 2008, is not seeking re-election.