Public Service Board's phone records probe begins
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By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau - Published: June 22, 2006
MONTPELIER — Members of the state's Public Service Board began their investigation into allegations that Verizon improperly allowed government access to its customers' records Wednesday.
A lawyer for Verizon said the phone company is going to ask the regulators to dismiss a case brought against it by seven of its Vermont customers and the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union.
Meanwhile, the Public Service Department formally began its argument for a board investigation into the matter and asked the board to allow that case to be combined with the ACLU complaint.
The department, which advocates for consumers, has asked that the board, which makes rulings in utility cases, consider levying fines against the phone company if it is found to be at fault.
The access Verizon and other phone companies allegedly provided to the National Security Administration first came to light in news stories on the agency's surveillance programs. The two inquiries now before Vermont's Public Service Board, and similar complaints and lawsuits in several other states, are attempts to determine if that access was granted, if it was done legally and whether it violated the companies' privacy policies.
The Public Service Board's decision is months away at least. After Wednesday's preliminary hearing, the parties in the cases have several weeks to submit and respond to briefs in the case.
The first test of the matter is likely to be whether the federal government intervenes to block the case, as it has sought to do in a similar matter in New Jersey. That has not happened, yet at least, in Vermont.
"I am just wondering if the government is lurking around here, other than in its usual form," quipped Richard Saudek, a utility lawyer working for the Vermont ACLU.
Alexander Moore, a lawyer for Verizon New England, told the board the two cases should not be combined. That is because the department's case is broader than the ACLU complaint, which focuses more narrowly on the question of whether the phone company gave the NSA access to its records, he said.
"Our only response (to the ACLU case) could be that we are sorry, but we can't provide that information," Moore said. The department's requested investigation could look at more mundane issues, for instance general law enforcement access to phone records.
Verizon essentially told the Department of Public Service earlier this year after the department asked for information on the alleged surveillance program that national security rules prohibited it from releasing the information.
"Verizon cannot, and does not, respond to this request with respect to the NSA or any other agency of program that is classified or for which a response is prohibited by federal law," the company responded, in part.
That answer did not satisfy the department, and it does not satisfy Michael Bandler of Killington, one of the Verizon customers who brought the complaint against the company.
"I think they have betrayed us as consumers," said Bandler, who is also distressed by the alleged part played by the federal government in the matter. "The threat to this democracy may not be overseas, it may be in Washington."
The case may involve a decision made in Washington, D.C., but it is up to the states to determine if anything was done improperly, said Allen Gilbert, head of the Vermont ACLU.
"Utilities generally are regulated by the individual states," he said. "It's the state regulators who govern privacy of the telecoms."
Similar complaints are being brought by the ACLU in more than 20 states, and consumers or state regulators have brought cases in other jurisdictions as well.
Lawyers for the Department of Public Service said that they need to get answers to the questions they posed to Verizon and to AT&T about government access to records to ensure consumers are being treated appropriately.
"We think it would be more efficient to consolidate these cases," said Leslie Cadwell, an attorney for the department. "Either way we want to get the information we need to do our jobs."
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