America's Concerns

Qwest Anyone?

By Charles E. Carlson
May 23, 2006
Qwest (Internet Services)
Security department
FAX 612-664- 4772

THIS IS A NOTICE TO QWEST SECURITY DEPARTMENT: YOU ARE ASKED TO IMMEDIATELY DELIVER THIS LETTER TO THE PARTY IN CHARGE AT QWEST LEGAL. It is deemed served when sent.

Gentlemen:

On May 16, my entire Internet service and Webhost service was turned off without notice. I spent several hours in conversation with at least four Qwest employees, ending with Sarah and Rubin in your "security" department. Quest showed me one complaint about WHTT from an Earthlink customer (with identify truncated to "protect his privacy" who complained of the receipt of an invitation, dated May 10, 2006, to our Internet Bible Study.

But this invitation was sent only to our opt-in list. No one from Earthlink has requested to be removed from this list in the last weeks. My service was finally restored after 36 hours. But I was warned that Qwest would take unilateral action to cancel my service again if I had more complaints about "unsolicited mail." Sarah and Rubin both refused to tell me who the hidden complainer on my list is. I cannot remove Mr. Earthlink from my opt-in list, however I did remove all Earthlink subscribers from my list, 100 or more.

But this did not help. On Monday, May 22, at 10:00 AM, service was again shut off without notice. Upon investigating the complainer (he must watch our website) Mr. Earthlink, again complained. Qwest's security man, Howard, was kind enough to confirm it was again an Earthlink customer who raised the lone additional complaint that brought our end. And Mr. Earthlink did not receive new mail! He complained for a second time about receiving the same May 10th invitation to the Bible Study! Quest's agent, Howard, read the letter to me and it was the same one. Our log shows May 10 was our last e-mailing made over the Qwest system. You shut us down again without sending any mail!

You have aided and abetted a hate mailer who has targeted your customer with a business objective of stalking us with intent to shut down our mission!

Why don't you start a constructive service to fairly referee spam complaints for your customers? You could have removed this imbedded complainer from our list for us if you did not want to tell us who he is. You could even sell such a service and charge for it. And you would know who was telling the truth instead of arbitrarily taking the word of the complainer who does not do business with you, over us, your customer.

DETAILS OF YOUR ABUSE

You are documented to have obstructed our mail to our customers from domain http://www.whtt.org, IP (63.229.126.149) and webhost 148. You have done so on assumptions by your employee, Analyst Rubin Sofiah, that we violated your "acceptable use policy."

On or about 7:00 A.M., May 16th Qwest knowingly blocked all Internet services to and from Charles E. Carlson and to his hosted domain http://www.whtt.org without any notice or attempts of notice to your customer. The http://www.whtt.org website was unavailable and the mission staff at whtt.org could not do their work for lack of Internet access. Nor can we conveniently move our website to any other service provider because you have blocked all communication to us on the Internet. In effect you set the barn on fire and blocked the doors.

Charles E. Carlson has been a Qwest Internet customer for over two years, and a phone service customer for many years. I have tolerated many problems with dubious Qwest Internet service during that time, including delayed service, cut lines, and failing modems.

In an entirely different department only last week, Qwest local service allowed someone, probably related to this complainer, to deliberately steal our main phone number, 480-947-3329 for half a day. More amazing, I am denied knowledge of who took it. Qwest claims the right to protecting the identity of the identity thief, stating we would have to subpoena the information if I want to know who stole our identity.

Qwest personnel's justification for this latest Internet action is also an anonymous complaint from someone (not even a Qwest customer) whose Email address is carefully hidden from us, but who can only be on our opt-in mailing list. This party no doubt wants to remain on our list so he can complain multiple times about receiving a single one-page non-commercial notice of an Internet New Testament Christian Bible study.

Qwest refuses to give me this embedded complainer's Email address, so we can remove him from our list, citing for your reason his "right to privacy." Still you demand that we run a complaint free Internet mission, else you say, you have the right to cancel our service without notice at your will under your acceptable use policy (Rubin Sofiah 5-16-2006).

Quest's real reason for its breach of our contract is admitted by your "analyst" Rubin to relate to a March 22, 2006, and everyone else I pinned down; is a blacklisting of http://www.whtt.org by a vigilante organization in England called Spamhaus that has had a record of attacking our religious mission three times. You fear Spamhaus. But this "blacklist" has absolutely no factual link or connection to Qwest, for at the time of this "blacklist" (March 22) Carlson was not using Qwest for either webhost or nameserver. Take, read: http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/sbl.lasso?query=SBL39366 )

Spamhaus' block is on its face provable related only to issues involving other service providers at former times, not Qwest. Furthermore, all three of Spamhaus' alleged complaints are about other domains alleged to be owned by the same Mr. Carlson. Quest has not been connected with any activity that can result in a legitimate complaint. Mr. Earthlink's complaint to Qwest is a protected forgery.

Quest Security personnel all know and state that Spamhaus caveats that it frequently injures innocent parties ("collateral damage") by its practices and Qwest is knowledgeable of Spamhaus' disclaimer, M. Sofiah cites "best interest of the internet" as an excuse for damaging WHTT without reasonable cause. Qwest knows this act damages Carlson who did nothing to offend Qwest.

The grist of this issue is that Qwest takes money from the whtt.org every month for services, but represents the interest of one or very few imbedded complainers with a purpose and agenda. These parties are, by their acts, shown to be professional hit men out to destroy our mission, and they require and receive secrecy to act out their mission under the guise of "protecting the internet" as your employees seem to be trained to say. Apparently this process of selling your customer out makes life easy for you, but it produces a problem that is not being addressed, damages to us" to end our mission.

Qwest has tortuously interfered with the conduct of the Strait Gate mission, an activity of faith often mislabeled "religious activity," and you do so without reasonable cause and diligence to the rights of your paying customer. You simply bend your acceptable use policy to meet your own definition of "spam."

Qwest has already done irreparable harm and defamation upon the undersigned. We are an Internet publisher of religious material. Your shutting down of our domain without warning is comparable to parking one of your trucks in the front door of a church during a church service." Suppose you did this because you thought the phone bill was unpaid, imagine the results.

We serve Jesus Christ, and it is His mission on earth. Our response will not be the normal commercial one you are used to. We will defend our rights to promote a Christian outreach within the confines of our legal contract with you. You have violated both the terms and sprit of that agreement.

We assert that we have not violated any laws of the United States, including the Federal Can-spam Act, nor have we been cited for any such violation, nor have we violated any contractual obligation with your company or organization.

But your irresponsible and self-serving acts may have caused us to violate federal Can-spam law by making it impossible for us to comply with the "remove method" sections of the law. You cause us to do error. It is almost certain that you have placed us in harms way, and Qwest knows the law full well.

You have publicly shamed and humiliated and defamed this user by cutting off Internet services that we sell and upon which others rely. You have caused our website to disappear without notice and in breach of lawful contract.

Qwest has irreparably damaged our Christian mission without the least consideration or warning, and by shutting down both our Internet service and our Web site. You make it impossible to move our Web site to any other service provider; and by defaming us without cause you make it difficult to find a host for our service.

You are attacking and interfering with our right to free speech. You interfere with our ability to carry our faith to our listeners and mission supporters.

Qwest joins Spamhaus in asserting that the undersigned is a "spammer." This has defamed and slandered our mission under Arizona tort law.

"Spam" is a dirty word and a criminal word. It is associated with the illicit and the base; spam is a crime; spam is a defamatory statement; your own self-serving definition be dammed. Spam is a law, and a law makes the word "spam" finite.

You have caused grave and serious mental anguish, a threat to physical health to myself and my closest supporters.

You have incited, publicly shamed, and humiliated and defamed this customer by your breach of lawful and good faith contract.

Charles E. Carlson and http://www.whtt.org have both been financially damaged having invested a life work in http://www.whtt.org, which you and Spamhaus threaten in a day.

But worse than money costs, you have damaged our reputation and good name and our ability to get things done. Our supporters have a right to accept consistency.

Because you have not supported our rights as your paying customers, we are threatened by the extreme likelihood that blacklisting and complaining will follow us. Qwest has made it pay.

One of your kind employees even suggested we should trash our seven year old list of supporters and subscribers to get rid of the one or two embedded complainers, and start over (after seven years) because Qwest will not give up the addresses of complainers. But you have no solution as to how to prevent ill wishers from again finding their way into our database and becoming malicious parasitic complainers. In effect, Qwest hides criminals from their victims.

In summary Quest has interfered with a mission of Christ followers with goal and sacrificial commitment to attempt to save an untold numbers of human lives, some perhaps our own sons and daughters. Our mission is to follow Christ, not to follow Qwest, and your war is not with the undersigned, it is or will very soon be with God. We will do what we think Jesus would tell us to do regardless of cost, embarrassment, or consequences.

We ask Qwest to restore our service immediately and to make an offer of restitution for damages.

We demand that Qwest preserve for discovery every piece of evidence.

Respectfully,

Charles E. Carlson http://www.whtt.org 5702 East Shea Blvd.
Phoenix AZ 85254
480 947 3329
480 699 1902 high speed internet
Qwest (Internet Services)
Security department
1.800 247 7285
FAX 612-664- 4772
Internet Phone billing Number 480 947 3329
Report #15430329

Initial employee contact number 19017

Full text of letter resulting in the multiple complaints from one person:

Dr. Gordon Ginn, Wednesday night, May 10, 2006, on the NEW TESTAMENT BOOK OF ROMANS CHAPTER 13

70 million people have been told in their churches that this one Bible Chapter justifies America's warring in the Middle East. DOES IT? http://www.whtt.org/live/ Then click: LISTEN LIVE

(Only one hour live)
Presented by:
DR. GORDON GINN, with a panel from We Hold These Truths Advisors Gordon Ginn is author of The Final Apostasy

Time 7:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 in the Rockies, 9:00 in the plains states, 10:00 PM in the East, and about 6:00 AM in India.

STRAIT GATE MINISTRIES
We Hold These Truths http://www.whtt.org P.O. Box 14491
Scottsdale, AZ 85267
FAX 602 741 4650

E-mail questions will be taken during the program: at [email protected] If you cannot be with us at this time remember this link: http://www.whtt.org/show/