Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I received an email message from Verizon Wireless, offering me a "Wory Free Guarantee" with new "exclusive benefits," including "FREE Back-Up Protection:"
- Never worry about losing your phone's contact list.
- Automatically retain a copy of your saved phone numbers to a secure web site.
- Available if you lose or upgrade to a new phone.
The thought of Verizon storing my cell phone data does not exactly ease my mind, however. Onnesha Roychoudhuri reports:
When USA Today published an article on May 11 alleging that the National Security Agency (NSA) had teamed up with major telecommunications companies to obtain access to Americans' communication records, [Doug] Cowie sent an e-mail to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, asking if the company was taking part in this program. After ambiguous responses from Verizon, Cowie filed a complaint with the Maine PUC [Public Utility Commission]. According to Cowie, the PUC is supposed to determine whether the complaint has merit and if it does, it 's supposed to open an investigation and have a hearing." ... After two months of silence, the PUC finally acted, asking Verizon to swear under oath to the veracity of a May press release the company issued in response to the USA Today allegations.
That release claimed that Verizon was not providing records to the government, but was ambiguous enough to leave room for doubt. A deadline was set for Verizon to respond and about an hour after the deadline passed, a response was received - a Justice Department announcement that it was suing the state of Maine.
The department invoked the state secrets privilege and claimed that for Verizon to even affirm that their previous statement was true would endanger the country. That's ridiculous, says Cowie. "[If] Verizon's public statements had classified information in them, they would have gone to jail."
Minutes after receiving notice of the Justice Department suit, Verizon submitted their filing, which stated that it could not verify its previous press statement because of the lawsuit that had just been announced. At that point, the Maine Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) got involved. The MCLU maintains that the Justice Department has no legal basis to sue the state of Maine for enforcing state law. Shenna Bellows, executive director of the MCLU, says that the department's claim that forcing Verizon to verify its previous statements would threaten national security "doesn't pass the straight-face test."
The Justice Department has sued four other states that launched similar inquiries: Missouri, Connecticut, Vermont and New Jersey - where the DoJ sued the attorney general for subpoenaing telecommunications companies within the state.
Is Verizon offering to keep my cell phone data safe, or has the wireless phone company launched a campaign to collect my user information for the NSA?
Verizon Wireless stands behind me, and the Justice Department stands behind Verizon.
I feel less worried already.
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