Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal Eavesdropping

[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Lichtblau]
Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights plan to file suits today against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program to determine whether the operation was used to monitor 10 defense lawyers, journalists, scholars, political activists and other Americans with ties to the Middle East. Both groups are seeking to have the courts order an immediate end to the program, which the groups say is illegal and unconstitutional. The Bush administration has strongly defended the legality and necessity of the surveillance program, and officials said the Justice Department would probably oppose the lawsuits on national security grounds. The lawsuits seek to answer one of the major questions surrounding the eavesdropping program: has it been used solely to single out the international phone calls and e-mail messages of people with known links to Al Qaeda, as President Bush and his most senior advisers have maintained, or has it been abused in ways that civil rights advocates say could hark back to the political spying abuses of the 1960's and 70's?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17nsa.html?pagewanted=all
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* Agencies probing sales of cellphone data
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky and Sinead Carew]
Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said on Friday that federal agencies were looking into whether telephone companies were sufficiently protecting consumers' records amid concerns that Internet sites were selling cellphone call information. In November, Rep Markey asked the FTC and the FCC to investigate what he said was a violation of private consumer information and to take steps to protect consumers.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-01-14T015133Z_01_N13373694_RTRUKOC_0_US-TELECOMS-CALLRECORDS.xml

* Cingular goes after firms selling call records
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Leslie Cauley]
Cingular Wireless is taking on companies that have been selling private phone records -- the actual numbers dialed, that is -- of unwary customers to anyone who asks. Cingular obtained a temporary restraining order late last week against operators of Locatecell.com and others of its ilk that specialize in offering private cellphone records for a flat fee. There are dozens of such services available, mostly through the Web. According to Cingular, these services have their employees masquerade as cellphone customers, or even Cingular employees, to wheedle confidential information out of customer-service representatives. That information — ranging from private cellphone numbers to the actual call records of cell and traditional phones — is then sold for a fee.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060117/1b_cellnumbers17.art.htm