MCLU Defends Mainers in Federal Privacy Lawsuit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

CONTACT: Shenna Bellows (207) 774-5444

PORTLAND – The MCLU went to court today to protect the privacy rights of Maine telephone customers.  In a motion filed in U.S. District Court, the MCLU seeks an opportunity to have the consumers’ voice heard in the Bush administration’s lawsuit against the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The MCLU asked that the Verizon customers who initiated the privacy investigation at the Maine Public Utilities Commission be added to US. v. Kurt Adams et al as intervenor-defendants. 

“The Justice Department is making up the law as it goes.  It’s a blatant attempt to intimidate Maine’s Public Utilities Commission, but it won’t work,” said John Paterson, an MCLU cooperating attorney with Bernstein Shur. “Mainers deserve to know if their privacy rights were violated.”

The MCLU asserts that the DOJ has no legal basis for suing the State of Maine.  The Maine Public Utilities Commission has merely asked Verizon to confirm the truthfulness of statements it had already made publicly in press releases.

“Verizon’s refusal to respond to our questions and now the Justice Department’s lawsuit makes it look like Verizon has cooperated in Maine with the National Security Agency and that they are guilty of violating Mainers’ privacy rights and possibly breaking the law,” said James Cowie, lead intervenor-defendant, “The United States of America is not a place where citizens should have to expect that the government is eavesdropping on our private telephone conversations.” 

Today’s filings follow on the heels of Attorney General Steve Rowe’s vigorous defense of Maine’s right to conduct an investigation.  Congressmen Mike Michaud and Tom Allen have called on U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to withdraw the lawsuit.  Fifteen Maine state senators and twenty-seven Maine state representatives signed a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales noting that state has both the authority and the responsibility to protect Mainers.

“The federal government has abused its authority to cover up what appears to be illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans,” said Shenna Bellows, Executive Director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, “No one, not the telephone companies and not the federal government, is above the law.”

Maine was the third state to be sued by the federal government is this matter.  The government has also sued the states of New Jersey and Missouri, and on September 6, the Department of Justice sued a fourth state, Connecticut, in an effort to prevent the state from determining whether the telephone companies or the federal government broke the law.  The federal government is attempting to use the theory of “state secrets” to prevent any state level investigations or lawsuits against the warrantless National Security Agency surveillance program.  The government’s legal arguments were challenged in two recent legal victories for privacy advocates.  In Hepting v. AT&T, a judge ruled that national security did not prevent consumers from moving forward with a lawsuit against the telephone companies.  In ACLU v. NSA, a judge ruled portions of the warrantless National Security Agency surveillance program to be unconstitutional.