Twenty-one phone service customers of Verizon Communications have filed a complaint with the Maine Public Utilities Commission to find out whether information about them has been turned over to the National Security Agency as part of its domestic surveillance program.

The complaint could yield results because the state has legal authority to ask questions that private citizens do not.

Shenna Bellows, Maine Civil Liberties Union

The complaint was filed in response to news stories that described government eavesdropping on conversations in which one of the participants was overseas. It reached the commission three days before USA Today reported that the secretive agency was also collecting phone records of tens of millions of Americans to analyze calling patterns.

Verizon is one of four companies identified in the article that have contracts to turn the information over to the government.

James Cowie of Portland said he became concerned after reading about the eavesdropping program last year and wrote to Verizon's president to ask if the company had given the government access to his telephone calls or e-mails.

"If he was able to tell us they weren't doing it, then that would be the end of it," he said.

Instead, a Virgina-based attorney for the company responded with an e-mail saying that the program is "highly classified" and that the company could not confirm or deny its participation, he said.

Cowie wants the PUC to ask the same question he posed.

Using a Maine law known as the "ten customer rule," which requires the commission to look into a complaint made by 10 customers of a utility, the group requested the PUC find out if any Maine customers were part of the surveillance program. The complaint was supported by the Maine Civil Liberties Union, and several MCLU board members signed on to the complaint.

The PUC has received the complaint and notified Verizon that it has 10 days to respond, said Phil Lindley, the commission's spokesman. The company has until May 19 to file its response, but utilities often ask for and are typically granted more time.

A Verizon company spokesman did not return a phone message Thursday afternoon.

The complaint could yield results because the state has legal authority to ask questions that private citizens do not, said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the MCLU.

"If any agency in Maine has the statutory authority to investigate, it's the PUC," she said.

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

32 North Street
Portland Maine 04101
May 6, 2006

Mr. Dennis Keschl
Acting Administrative Director
Maine Public Utilities Commission
242 State Street
Augusta, Maine 04330

Dear Mr. Keschl:

Enclosed is a Complaint, pursuant to §1302 of the Commission's statutes, requesting that the Commission investigate whether Verizon is cooperating, in Maine, with the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretapping program.

Attached to the Complaint are two articles from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that describe NSA'a wiretapping program ; three e-mails to Verizon from my wife, Annie, and me on whether it is cooperating in Maine with NSA’s program, and three e-mail replies from Mr. Drew Arena, a Verizon attorney; and the signatures, names, addresses, and phone numbers of the Complainants. The Complainants, who are all Verizon local exchange customers, received a copy of the Complaint, the newspaper articles, and the e-mail exchanges with Verizon, prior to signing the Complaint.

According to its e-mail responses, Verizon's position is that, because NSA's domestic wiretapping program is "highly classified," federal laws prohibit them for discussing whether they are coöperating in Maine with that NSA program - even if they are not. As to whether Verizon has provided NSA access to its or MCI's switching facilities in Maine, Verizon states it is not aware of any statute that would prohibit it from doing so, but that, if it did, NSA would be prohibited from undertaking surveillance activities at those facilities by various laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Two comments: Verizon being prohibited by federal law from saying whether it is coöperating in Maine with NSA's warrantless wiretapping activities, even if Verizon is not doing so, puts its customers in an Orwellian situation, which we hope the Commission can cut through. As for there being no federal or State of Maine statute that prohibits a telephone company, which is a Maine public utility, from providing a government agency such as NSA unwarranted access to its facilities: if that is true, the Commission obviously needs another statute; if it is not true, Verizon needs to be so advised, and immediately. But even if Verizon is correct on this point, we now know the president and the U.S. attorney general have declared that NSA does not have to comply with the FISA requirement that it obtain FISA Court orders prior to undertaking the wiretapping of U.S. citizens' calls and e-mails. So if indeed Verizon is providing NSA access to its facilities in Maine, Verizon is clearly wrong that NSA is prohibited from tapping calls to and from Verizon’s customers in Maine.

The basis of our Complaint is the possibility that Verizon's e-mail responses reflect unreasonable utility practices, as referenced in §1302. The questions in our e-mails to Verizon are fundamental to the Complaint; namely, has Verizon provided NSA unwarranted access to call and e-mail records of its customers in Maine, or to Verizon or MCI facilities in Maine? Thus, have circuits been installed in any Verizon or MCI facility in Maine that allow NSA to tap calls and e-mails, or have any of Verizon’s or MCI’s Maine customers’ calls been included in data mining samples provided to NSA or directly sampled by NSA? Verizon’s e-mail responses do not answer those questions; Complainants are relying on the Commission being able to use its statutory authority to get yes or no answers from Verizon.

Very truly yours,

James D. Cowie
Lead Complainant

P.S. In case it is necessary for me to declare this: Until last January 31st, when I retired, I was a member of the Commission’s technical staff for 18 years, most of which I worked on telephone cases, first as an expert witness on the Commission’s advocate staff, and later on its advisory staff.

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