Chicagoans sue AT&T to stop phone company from handing over phone records

Chicago icon Studs Terkel and 5 others are suing AT&T to force them to stop handing over their customers' phone records to George Bush's latest revealed illegal domestic spying program. The ACLU and two other Chicago attorneys are asking the court to

"certify a class of Illinois residents who use AT&T for telephone service and to enjoin AT&T from divulging any further information to the NSA."

The AP story Studs Terkel, others sue over phone records" quotes Terkel's historic personal persepective

"Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans," Terkel said in a statement. "When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far."

Good for Studs Terkel and the other plaintiffs! They are

Barbara Flynn Currie, Majority Leader of the Illinois House of Representatives; Rabbi Gary Gerson of Oak Park Temple; Professor Diane Geraghty, Director of the Civitas ChildLaw Center at Loyola University School of Law, Chicago; James Montgomery, former Corporation Counsel for the City of Chicago; and, Dr. Quinten Young, a physician and advocate for health care reform.

In a lovely example of web ads that snark, the Sun-Times online version of the AP story juxtaposes this story about how AT&T is Big Brother with a pitiful "Get 3 months of free service when you switch".

Hahaha. Bet the AT&T public relations people wouldn't be happy about that. :)

For more info on the ACLU's lawsuit see their NSA Spying page.

Don't forget about the EFF's class-action lawsuit either.

Categories: Chicago, Terkel, AT&T, Bush, illegal, spying, ACLU, EFF