PORTLAND -- Today, the Maine Civil Liberties Union Foundation (MCLU) formally
opposed the transfer of a high profile Maine telecom case to California. The
case is United States v. Adams et al in which the federal government has sued
Maine Public Utilities Commissioners to prevent the PUC from conducting an
investigation into whether Verizon is cooperating in Maine with the National
Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program. Verizon issued two press
releases last May denying it provided NSA any call records. The PUC has only
asked that Verizon affirm under oath that its press releases are true, and there
are no other significant issues in the case. AT&T, which is the target of a
privacy lawsuit in California, sought to have the Maine case transferred to
California.
“This doesn’t make any sense at all,” said John Paterson, an MCLU cooperating
attorney with Bernstein Shur, “The federal government’s attempt to stop a PUC
investigation is far different from the consumer lawsuit against AT&T and
other phone companies out in California.”
The transfer order came from the Joint Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, a
committee of judges that oversees complex cases in multiple courtrooms. If the
transfer order stands, the Maine case will be transferred to San Francisco,
along with twenty-five other cases from around the country. The Maine lawsuit,
however, is substantially different from most of the others. The MCLU represents
James D. Cowie and 17 other Maine phone customers who want the Maine PUC to
investigate Verizon.
“We brought our complaint case to the PUC so that Maine could protect the
privacy rights of Mainers,” said James Cowie, lead complainant in the original
request for an investigation to the PUC and an MCLU client. “The PUC hasn’t even
opened an investigation yet. We just want to know whether or not Verizon was
telling the truth to the press and the public last spring.”
The MCLU filings today point out that the costs and delay associated with
moving the Maine case to California are significant. Travel from Maine to
California is expensive, and the case is likely to be time consuming. With
twenty-five cases raising different legal and factual issues, the MCLU’s
resources would be quickly depleted.
“The only question in the Maine case is whether you can believe everything
you read in the papers. This transfer order seems to be motivated by a desire to
drag out this proceeding as long as possible,” said Shenna Bellows, MCLU
Executive Director. Transfer imposes a high cost on Mainers who just want to
know if their privacy rights were violated,”
A ruling on the transfer order is expected within the next few months.
