Saturday, May 13, 2006

Verizon sued for violating privacy rights

They say you can't fight City Hall...

...but you sure as hell can fight a multi-billion dollar corporation, especially when the President isn't able to interfere with due process of law.

From an Associated Press news story dated 12 May, available at Yahoo News:

"TRENTON, N.J. - Two New Jersey public interest lawyers sued Verizon Communications Inc. for $5 billion Friday, claiming the phone carrier violated privacy laws by turning over phone records to the National Security Agency for a secret government surveillance program..."

"The lawsuit asks the court to stop Verizon from turning over any more records to the NSA without a warrant or consent of the subscriber."

While Congress seems to be largely powerless to stop the Executive Branch's abuse of power, they're nothing compared to a few smart attorneys who sense an unbelievably ginormous fee. (El-oh-el)

I'm just kidding...the reality is, all lawyers are noble and helpful and work only in their client's best interest all the time.

(my attorney insisted that I say that)

"This is the largest and most vast intrusion of civil liberties we've ever seen in the United States," (attorney) Afran said of the NSA program.

...oh, alright...I guess there ARE some lawyers that are cool.

The entire article is worth reading, even though Verizon lamely insists they don't allow "...unfettered access..." to any government agency for "fishing" expeditions, whatever THAT means.

As far as I'm concerned...."That fish don't swim!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe You should think of this, it has been said that that the news stories about warrant less wiretaps and phone record data mining have hurt national security. So does that mean that those reporters are enemies of the state? If so then couldn't Shrub and Darth Cheney use the records all the Telco’s provided to see who these reporters have talked to this year and that those people talked to, and maybe they are all enemies of the state also. The data they are accumulating, just a who called who database would be great for finding leakers who are keeping the American public informed. Then maybe they would just disappear to a prison outside the country in Gitmo or Eastern Europe. I can hear the quote now, People go missing all the time, maybe they are just undercover on some story.

Do you trust the people in office?? The ones who haven't done their job providing oversight and the ones who are just plain evil. They are both guilty, one group should resign the other group should go to prison.
Scott

CT Bob said...

Prison would be the icing on the cake, but I'll settle for a piece of plain ol' resignation cake. Nixon stopped being a problem the day after he left office.

Except for the aftershocks of his presidency, but that's to be expected.