US sues Maine officials for probe on Verizon, NSA
http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...c=66&type=qcna
Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:59pm ET
NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. government sued Maine officials on Tuesday to block their demand that Verizon disclose whether it gave the government's spying program access to its customer data, documents showed.
The government's civil suit, submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice to a district court in Maine, said the Maine public utilities officials' attempts to obtain information on Verizon's involvement with the National Security Agency (NSA) were "invalid".
"The defendant state officers' attempts to obtain such information are invalid under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and are preempted by the United States Constitution and various federal statutes," the lawsuit said.
Kurt Adams, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, as well as two other regulatory officials, were named in the lawsuit.
Verizon's local subsidiaries were also named to prevent the company from responding to the Maine officials' demands for information.
"We're just in the middle here," said Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis.
The federal government has also sued the New Jersey Attorney General and Missouri utility regulators for serving similar subpoenas for information to AT&T Inc. (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research)
USA Today in May reported that AT&T, BellSouth Corp and Verizon had supplied customer call records to the NSA for an anti-terrorism program, sparking protests and class action lawsuits from privacy advocates.
Reply With Quote