Cellphone Privacy Under Attack

Our basic right to privacy is under attack across the country, including here in Maine. Yesterday, The Guardian newspaper revealed that U.S. government has been secretly tracking the calls of every Verizon Business Network Services customer for at least the past 41 days. And here in Maine, the Portland Press Herald has reported that Maine law enforcement is monitoring hundreds of cellphone users across the state, most of whom have done nothing wrong. Both reports point to the need for updates to our electronic privacy laws and for greater oversight by our courts.

As my colleague Jameel Jaffer wrote concerning the Verizon monitoring, "It's a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents." The Guardian obtained and published a classified court order requiring Verizon to provide access to the customer data, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT ACT. The ACLU and other privacy rights organizations are calling for termination of the order and an investigation of its rationale and scope.

For many of us who have been working to challenge government surveillance,

the Verizon story brought back memories of our historical efforts to challenge the legality of government surveillance eight years ago. Here in Maine, our work became the model for state-level investigations across the country, until Congress changed the rules to give exemptions to phone companies and shut our campaign down.

Here in Maine, we have a chance to push back. Senator Roger Katz and a large bipartisan group of legislators have worked to enact legislation that will require the government to obtain a search warrant before acquiring your private cell-phone location information. The law will also require law enforcement to tell you if you have been the subject of cellphone tracking and monitoring, just like the police would have to tell you if they searched your house. The government is resisting this oversight by attempting to use procedural maneuvers to kill the bill, but we are determined to make meaningful cellphone privacy protection a reality for the people of Maine and, hopefully, the nation.