Let The Law Suits Begin! Time For Americans To Fight Back!

Verizon is the first company to be the brunt of public outrage over the revelation that the NSA sought and was given without a court order, phone records of all customers. Two New Jersey public interest lawyers are suing according to a story from the AP. The damages asked: $50 billion.

Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, attorneys, filed the lawsuit Friday afternoon in Manhattan federal district court. On Verizon's part, the company declined to say whether or not it turned over any records because that information was "Classified". Sounds like the same defense used to stop the Justice Department from investigating the wiretaps. "ITS SECRET!"

Well that is not good enough. Claiming we can't tell you cause it's secret is not only lame, but since this surveillance clearly violates several laws it's a lie. Just because the President wants something, we are a nation of laws and he can't just get anything he wants and break the law, only later to declare it a secret. If he were a kid in grade school I could understand the petulance, but for an allegedly grown adult this is a poor kind of argument.

As for Verizon, their privacy policy on their web site clearly states:

"Personal information you voluntarily supply when obtaining information, purchasing products, or interacting with our advertising on verizon.com is not shared for non-Verizon purposes. This information is Verizon proprietary data and is not available for use to any outside company in this personalized form. Should any changes be made in the way we use personally identifiable information, Verizon will contact you via e-mail notifying you of this change and give you the opportunity to choose to opt out of such use."

I guess all bets are off if it's for secret stuff?

UPDATE:

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco watchdog group that has sued AT&T for its role in turning customer data over to the government. Let's hope it's the beginning of a flood.