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The democratic role in society of the AT&T entity is just like any other interest group in the United States American politics. In every election they never fail to provide candidates from both the Democratic and Republican Party with special interest money and campaign contributions to individuals and in the forms of PACs. Legislature influence is prominent with strong lobbying efforts from AT&T so there is plenty of agency and bureaucratic leverage.

However, critics of the telecom giant believe some of the company’s practices are unhealthy to an open democratic society.  From campaign finance to judicial proceedings, critics accuse AT&T of overstepping their bounds by dissecting loopholes in the system such as immunity from prosecution for their illegal activities. Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse commented on AT&T’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA , saying,”a tie-up between the two would hurt innovation and set the country’s wireless industry back.If AT&T is allowed to swallow T-Mobile, competition will be stifled, growth will be stifled and wireless innovation will be jeopardized.”

Two major scandals have occurred in the 2000’s that exemplifies exactly how much influence  a large corporation such as AT&T has on within the legislator, judiciary and discourse surrounding the public. Beginning in October 2001, President Bush mandated a secret presidential order demanding the National Security Agency (NSA) to administer a range of surveillance activities inside of America with no statutory authorization or court injunction. The major issue surrounding the executive order was the electronic surveillance of Americans’ telephone and internet communications with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, mainly AT&T. The National Security Agency is a United States government intel agency that is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications. According to the NSA site, it “coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and produce foreign signals intelligence information.”

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