DOJ still wants spy suit against Verizon tossed

DOJ STILL WANTS SPY SUIT AGAINST VERIZON TOSSED
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
On Thursday, U.S District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco federal court heard arguments about dismissal of a set of now-consolidated class action suits against Verizon and then-separate MCI. Those companies have been accused of operating a content surveillance "dragnet" and of turning over subscriber records to the NSA without a warrant. (Verizon, for its part, has publicly denied providing such information to the spy agency.) In an El Paso Times interview last week in which Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell acknowledged the "private sector" has assisted in the president's so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. Some opponents of the phone-call-and-email-snooping regime promptly pounced on the remarks, suggesting they implicate telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon, which have been accused in numerous lawsuits of consumer privacy violations and illicit cooperation with the Bush administration. "Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," McConnell told the paper
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9768991-7.html

* AT&T Must Face Justice for Illegal Spying
http://www.eff.org/news/