Justice Dept. wants NSA suits consolidated for D.C. court By Reuters http://news.com.com/Justice+Dept.+wants+NSA+suits+consolidated+for+D.C.+cour t/2100-1028_3-6085874.html
Story last modified Tue Jun 20 11:21:04 PDT 2006 The U.S. Department of Justice wants to consolidate at least two dozen lawsuits against the government and Verizon Communications that involve the National Security Agency's alleged access to telephone customer records. The government on Monday filed a motion supporting Verizon's request that 20 class action lawsuits accusing the company of helping the foreign intelligence surveillance program be combined in a single court in Washington. "Given the national security concerns in this case, the District of Columbia would be the most logical and convenient forum," the filing said. The Justice Department also asked that five other lawsuits against the U.S. government related to the surveillance program be consolidated and coordinated with the Verizon proceeding. Government lawyers said they planned to seek dismissal of the lawsuits against Verizon by asserting military and state secrets privileges under U.S. law. Moving the cases to one court would expedite the process while protecting classified information, it said. Combining all the cases would "allow the resolution of this threshold matter in the most efficient manner for the courts and the parties while protecting highly sensitive and classified information, the disclosure of which would be harmful to the national security," the filing said. Class action lawsuits were filed against Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth after USA Today reported that they gave access and turned over call data records to the NSA to help track terrorist plots. BellSouth has denied turning over records or providing access to the NSA, while Verizon has said that it does not provide the government unfettered access to customer records. AT&T has said it helps when asked by the government, but only within the law. Verizon on May 24 asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate 20 similar lawsuits that were filed against the company in 14 federal district courts. Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Copyright ©1995-2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. _______________________________________________ Infowarrior mailing list [email protected] https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
