Skip to content
Categories:

‘This is not a happy day’ for telecoms’ general counsels

Post date:
Author:

Twenty years ago, Congress made it illegal for the [tag]telecommunications[/tag] companies to give the government [tag]records[/tag] showing who their customers had contacted. Oops.

Legal experts said the companies faced the prospect of [tag]lawsuits[/tag] seeking billions of dollars in damages over cooperation in the program, citing communications privacy legislation stretching back to the 1930’s. A federal lawsuit was filed in Manhattan yesterday seeking as much as $50 billion in civil damages against Verizon on behalf of its subscribers. […]

Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and assistant professor at George Washington University, said his reading of the relevant statutes put the phone companies at risk for at least $1,000 per person whose records they disclosed without a court order.

“This is not a happy day for the general counsels” of the phone companies, he said. “If you have a class action involving 10 million Americans, that’s 10 million times $1,000 — that’s 10 billion.”

As James X. Dempsey, a lawyer for the Center for Democracy and Technology, put it, “It is simply illegal for a telephone company to turn over caller records without some form of legal process, such as a court order or a subpoena.”

After 9/11, [tag]AT&T[/tag], [tag]Verizon[/tag], and [tag]BellSouth[/tag] allowed themselves to be bullied by the administration. The [tag]Bush[/tag] gang told them that it was their patriotic duty to turn over their records and comply with government requests, without warrants or any kind of legal process. They also “hinted” that lucrative government contracts were on the line.

Right about now, I suspect the telecoms are regretting their decision to go along.

Comments

  • Gac

    says:

    It’s the military requesting througn NSA. They don’t need permission.

    The issue is did someone like Plame get ACCESS.

  • KTinOhio

    says:

    As a customer of both AT&T and Verizon, I am looking forward to joining whatever class-action suits are filed. It’s time to teach corporate America a lesson.

  • rege

    says:

    They also “hinted” that lucrative government contracts were on the line.
    I wonder BushCo. sent in Alphonso Jackson to close the deal.

  • Tom Cleaver

    says:

    As a victim, er, I mean a customer of @#$#@$#%%$#@!!!! SBC/ATT, I would love to see that futhermucking Texass sonofabitch who owns the company get bent over and spread wide enough to take an ungreased Louisville Slugger wide-end first, repeatedly. This is the pig who wants to privatize the Internet.

    SBC took a company – Pacific Bell – that prided itself on being a public SERVICE, with whom it was always a pleasure to have any dealings since they thought it was important to keep the customers happy, and turned it into a machine that thinks customers are some low lifeform worthy only to be grabbed by the ankle, held upside down shaken for everything they’ve got.

    The only reason I stay with them is the alternative is @#$%$##@!!! Verizon, a company that’s tied with them for being lying weasel bastards (did you know they took that actor, the one with the glasses, who does their “can you hear me now?” and “network” ads, and made it a condition of employment that he could not publicly associate his name with the character or the commercials – which would allow him to become more successful, and thus able to ask more money from them – and they have him locked in to a contract that has seen no increase in pay for the entire time he’s been on with them? Like I said, they’re pigscum).

    I hope they all get run into bankruptcy for bending over and spreading for Bush, and I hope the top executives get held PERSONALLY responsible.

    Yes, I do hate telephones.

    Just remember to put on your phone what I had on mine between 1969-74: “DON’T SAY ANYTHING ON THIS PHONE YOU WOULDN’T SAY FACE TO FACE TO AN FBI AGENT” – people thought I was paranoid, until the facts of COINTELPRO came out in the Watergate Hearings and I got my letter from the Justice Department in 1978, giving me my COINTELPRO file, I’d actually been one of the first on their list, back in 1965.

    At least back then, the bastards had the decency to admit they’d done wrong….

  • hark

    says:

    Only in America. This scandal involves some very deep pockets indeed, so in come the lawyers, and for the first time all hell gets raised over one of Bush’s attacks on civil liberties. But
    who makes out? The lawyers, of course. And who gets punished? The corporations, to some extent. But not Bush, of course. This bastard escapes yet another scandal unscathed. Hell, by the results of that recent poll, he might even get a bounce in his approval rating for doing this, since 2/3 of the American people seemed pleased about the spying.

  • rege

    says:

    hark, is that you? The pessimism is there but your distinctive posting layout is gone. Why the sudden conformity?

    As far as going after the telecoms is concerned, I don’t have a problem with it. We must attack on all fronts. That doesn’t mean that the administration can’t block this approach. They have already showed a willingness to use the “military and state secrets privilege” to block the EFF lawsuit against AT&T.

  • Tom Cleaver

    says:

    Hey Hark, the corporations and Bush and the Republicans are one and the same entity, and the only thing these bastard futhermuckers understand is having their money taken away from them – it hurts them lots worse than going to jail (since while they’re in jail, if they didn’t lose their money, it’s still working for them). Don’t let swallowing right wing propaganda against lawyers for the last 30 years blind you to the truth. Republicans don’t like lawyers because a synonym for Republican is “defendant”.

    For those who would like to contact the lawyers who brought the lawsuit against Verizon and are going to bring the others, so you can join as a named plaintiff, here is their blog:

    Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran – The New Jersey Untouchables Law Group

    http://newjerseyuntouchables.blogspot.com/

    I’ve already contacted them – their e-mail is cybersquire@aol.com

    Making the bastard Republicans pay through the nose for their crimes is The American Way and it works!!!!!

  • GMF

    says:

    AT&T (aka SBC) & BellSouth have a merger pending…could this issue become a factor in that somehow?

  • Carl

    says:

    I guess this board only posts nitwits that don’t have a working knowledge of the US Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court caselaw, or even the entire content of the individual articles from which they drew their motivation to rant. Count me in!

  • Shalimar

    says:

    The Bush gang told them that it was their patriotic duty to turn over their records

    You’re overlooking the fact that they were reportedly paid an ubdisclosed sum for doing their “duty”. Never underestimate a corporation’s willingness to profit at their customer’s expense The bastards deserve what they get.

  • ET

    says:

    It is sad that all those high-priced lawers that the telecom companies paid didn’t see this coming. Bush and the administration aren’t going to be the ones that pay the direct price for this the telecoms are.

  • TL

    says:

    It’s the military requesting througn NSA. They don’t need permission.

    The issue is did someone like Plame get ACCESS. – Gac

    Huh? So the military can invade the public’s privacy all they want because they requested the NSA to do it? Sorry, but no one is above the law in this country, no matter what line the Bush administration is feeding you.

    Regarding the accusation of Plame leaking the NSA call record information, do you really think that a CIA agent is briefed on every program in the NSA? It’s absurd to turn this scandal around and blame Valerie Plame for it when your claims are baseless and without merit.