Maine Owl

Maine PUC/Verizon case voided by Wednesday ruling

Judge Tosses Telecom Spy Suits
David Kravets | Wired | June 3, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO ? A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed lawsuits targeting the nation?s telecommunication companies for their participation in President George W. Bush?s once-secret electronic eavesdropping program.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker upheld summer legislation protecting the companies from the lawsuits. The legislation, which then-Sen. Barack Obama voted for, also granted the government the authority to monitor American's telecommunications without warrants if the subject was communicating with somebody overseas suspected of terrorism.

This case a couple of years ago had folded in the Maine PUC "truth-in-filing" demand concerning phone records snooping--resisted by both the subject of the request, Verizon, and the federal government. A lot of the details are in my WERU interviews with Maine Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Shenna Bellows found HERE and HERE.

I'm noting that the MCLU does not yet have up a release on the ruling. (An informative March item on the subject is HERE.)

For even more information, there is a tremendous volume of local and national blog material available on the FISA revision/telcomm immunity struggle of 2007-2008. The current ruling shows why civil liberties bloggers were right, while Mr. Obama and a majority of Congress were wrong--save for heroes like Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd. Of course, Glenn Greenwald is the premiere national blogger on state secrets and telcomm immunity.

Despite how this issue is discussed by lawmakers, the administration, and the press, the snooping involved is not necessarily targeted upon foreign "terrorists," but rather upon the public as a whole. Here are a few questions we must continue to ask our politicians and fellow citizens about the Bush-era spying programs that appear to be protected and are continuing under President Obama: If you did understand that the surveillance involved "large net" capture of all domestic as well as international electronic communications would you still support it? Would you support creation of databases of peaceful people (of any persuasion)--based on their communications network and political beliefs--that could be employed for authoritarian purposes in creating a climate of fear and squelching free speech? If the courts now are enjoined from addressing this, what guarantees do we have that untrusted officials (maybe those in a political party we oppose) will not be able to create enemies profiles without proper warrants and without Constitutionally supportable evidence of actual illegal activity?