Well, it may be true that Verizon is not running CarrierIQ (or has hidden it better than most), however Verizon IS collecting a wide range of data on your phone usage. See their updated privacy page at:
http://www22.verizon.com/privacy/
and then go to the page titled: Important notice about how Verizon Wireless uses information at:
https://email.vzwshop.com/servlet/website/ResponseForm?OSPECC_9_0_9hg_eLnHs_uhmpJLE
Of course, Verizon does give you a way to (apparently) opt out of some of their data collection, but remember that Verizon was one of the Tier 1 carriers that was secretly supplying the Bush Administration with massive amounts of phone usage data in criminal violation of the Fourth Amendment::
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The Administration and Congress later passed a law retroactively "legalizing" what Verizon and AT&T were doing, but that, too, was unconstitutional, as Article I, Section 9, which lists the limitations of Congress's powers states:
No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
An ex post facto law is one that declares an act to be a crime or not a crime AFTER the act has been committed. It can't do that. Any illegal act committed before a bill legalizing the act is passed and becomes law is still subject to criminal prosecution, and any legal act committed before a law was passed criminalizing it was still legal, and can not be considered a crime. Nor can any legislation that changes the sentencing or other punishment for a violation be applied to violations committed before the bill became law.
All the time the Administration was covertly conducting warranless snooping and all the time Verizon was cooperating, both were denying to high heavens that they would EVER do such a dastardly act. As former President Bush reassured the nation on April 20, 2004 at a speech in Buffalo, NY:
" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
This was well into the period when he (with the willing covert cooperation of Verizon, AT&T, and others) was conducting massive warrentless wiretaps.
So, maybe the tinfoil fez should go to all of those people making fun of the possibility that Verizon might, just might, be harvesting more information than they admit to - whether they use Carrier IQ or some similar program.
