Bush Lawbreaking Continues

Unable or unwilling to catch Osama bin Laden, President Bush is distracting the public with an all-out attack on U.S. citizens. The unwarranted NSA wiretap program was one hideous example. The more recently disclosed roundup of the phone records of tens of millions of Americans is another.

Phone Firms Questioned

Legal experts say the divulging of records to the government is prohibited by a 1986 law.

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — While Capitol Hill debated the issue Friday, many lawyers voiced surprise that three major telephone companies had agreed to make available to the National Security Agency the phone records of tens of millions of Americans.

That's because Congress made it illegal 20 years ago for telephone companies and computer service providers to turn over to the government records showing who their customers had dialed or e-mailed.

"I would not want to be the general counsel of one of these phone companies," said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and a former Justice Department lawyer who has worked on electronic surveillance.

Kerr was referring to the disclosure Thursday that the Bush administration has been secretly collecting the domestic phone call records of millions of Americans. The government reportedly obtained the records from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth but was turned down by Denver-based Qwest Communications.

The law doesn't make it illegal for the government to ask for such records. Rather, it makes it illegal for phone companies to divulge them.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 was passed when cellphones and the Internet were emerging as new forms of communication. Section 2702 of the law says the providers of "electronic communications … shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber or customer … to any government entity."

Companies that violate the law are subject to being sued and paying damages of at least $1,000 per violation per customer.

The first such lawsuit was filed Friday against Verizon in New Jersey.