BOSTON – Rejecting wildly overblown
assertions that private phone companies can hide behind a “state secrets”
argument, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts today said it has
filed legal papers with the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and
Energy (DTE) calling for a prompt public hearing on a May 2006 complaint against
Verizon and AT&T for their reported role in facilitating illegal government
spying on ordinary Americans.
“This case is about transparency and
telling people the truth about what the phone companies are doing with our
records,” said Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts residents have a right to know how the phone companies respond to
requests for private phone records when there is no warrant or court
order.”
The ACLU filing comes on the heels of a federal court
ruling last Thursday that the Bush Administration’s program to monitor the phone
calls and e-mails of Americans without warrants is unconstitutional and must be
stopped. (www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/index.html).
On
May 24, the ACLU of Massachusetts filed a complaint on behalf of the mayors of
Newton, Somerville, Chicopee, and Northampton, alleging that these phone
companies enabled illegal government spying by turning over private details
about Americans’ telephone calls to the National Security Agency (NSA) without
proper warrants. The ACLU has requested that the DTE hold a public hearing on
the mayors’ complaint that Verizon and AT&T disclosed call records of their
Massachusetts customers without the customers’ knowledge or legal authorization.
Both Verizon and AT&T have urged the DTE to dismiss the complaint on the
grounds of state secrets.
“Private companies cannot invoke state
secrets privilege – only the United States government can assert such a claim,”
Rose said. “The DTE has a legal obligation to hold public hearings into
whether the phone companies have violated their own policies, the law, or their
customers’ right to privacy. Such a hearing should not involve state secrets.
Instead, the hearing should focus on the specific question of how
telecommunications companies in Massachusetts respond to government requests for
private phone records where there is no warrant or court
order.”
News reports have indicated that at least three companies –
Verizon, BellSouth, and AT&T – have complied with warrantless requests from
the NSA to turn over the calling records of millions of customers across the
nation.
On June 30, USA Today reported that 19 lawmakers confirmed
that the NSA has built a massive database of tens of millions of phone records
to monitor Americans' calling patterns. USA Today also reported that five of
those lawmakers confirmed that AT&T has participated in the program and
stated that BellSouth did not. Three lawmakers stated that Verizon did not
participate in the program but that its subsidiary, MCI,
did.
Beginning in 2001, President Bush secretly authorized the
National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of people within the
United States, including U.S. citizens, without a warrant. The ongoing
surveillance program has been in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA), a federal law that requires the executive branch to
obtain a warrant before engaging in electronic surveillance of
Americans.
"There are clear inconsistencies in the information,
statements, representations, and guarantees to the customers of Verizon and
AT&T regarding the private status of their personal information," said ACLU
of Massachusetts Legal Director John Reinstein. "In light of the reported
disclosure of this information to the NSA, there are well-founded concerns that
these companies have violated their own privacy policies – as well as violated
state and federal regulations and laws that protect all customers. The DTE has a
responsibility under Massachusetts law to investigate these violations of the
privacy of Massachusetts customers."
Massachusetts law requires the
DTE to hold a public hearing if a written complaint is filed on behalf of any
Massachusetts mayor. The ACLU of Massachusetts filed its complaint and request
for a hearing on behalf of Mayors David B. Cohen of Newton, Joseph A. Curtatone
of Somerville, Michael D. Bissonnette of Chicopee, and Mary Clare Higgins of
Northampton.
The ACLU filed its response just one day after the
U.S. Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against officials of the
Maine Public Utilities Commission and Verizon, seeking to stop Verizon from
answering questions posed by the commission. The DOJ lawsuit also seeks to
prevent any further investigation of Verizon’s collaboration with the National
Security Agency Surveillance program. The DOJ filed a similar lawsuit in New
Jersey last month.
In Vermont, Governor Jim Douglas is supporting
a similar investigation, despite a threat from the federal government to sue the
state, saying, :We don’t want this kind of intrusion into the privacy of
Vermonters by anyone, by government, or by companies.”
In
Connecticut, the Department of Public Utility Control – that state's equivalent
of the DTE – denied Verizon's motion to dismiss a complaint from the ACLU of
Connecticut, and has scheduled a hearing for September 6.
“No one
– not the DOJ, the NSA or private phone companies – is above the law,” said
Rose. "Government spying on innocent Americans without any kind of warrant and
without Congressional approval runs counter to the very foundations of our
democracy.”
For more information on the ACLU’s efforts to stop
illegal spying: www.aclu.org/nsaspying. For
copies of the DTE filings and additional information on the Stop the Abuse of
Power campaign in Massachusetts: www.aclum.org/telephone_privacy.