NEW YORK (AP) - A civil rights group was launching a nationwide Don't Spy On Me campaign Wednesday to urge the public to demand that the Federal Communications Commission and state utility commissions probe whether phone companies broke laws by sharing customer records with the government's biggest spy agency. On its Web site Tuesday night, the American Civil Liberties Union said it was demanding action at the FCC in Washington, D.C., and in 17 states. It was to advertise the start of its program in newspapers across the country Wednesday.
The campaign, symbolized by a telephone with an eye on it, urges members of the public to go to an ACLU Web site to add their names to complaints being filed with the FCC and with state utility commissions to show there is a large population of people upset by the sharing of their records.
Several ACLU representatives declined to speak late Tuesday about the program because a Wednesday morning news conference was scheduled, but some information was placed on the organization's Web site.
"Join us in our work," the ACLU site said, referring to the program. "Help defend privacy and civil liberties."
Items posted on the Web site included a rough draft of a letter the ACLU planned to send Wednesday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
In the letter, the ACLU said recent inconsistent statements by phone companies showed the need for an independent entity like the FCC to investigate allegations that telecommunications companies illegally cooperated with the National Security Administration to collect calling information patterns on Americans.
On Tuesday, Martin said in a letter that the agency doesn't have the power to review classified information, according to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on a House telecommunications subcommittee.
"The classified nature of the NSA's activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations discussed in your letter," Martin, a Republican, wrote in a letter dated Monday.
Markey asked Martin last week to investigate reports that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth shared phone call records about tens of millions of Americans with the NSA.
A Democratic FCC commissioner, Michael J. Copps, said last week that the agency should investigate phone companies involved in the NSA program.
The ACLU said on its Web site in its draft letter to Martin that it was endorsing Copps' call.
"This creation of a massive database of Americans' calling patterns seems to be in direct violation of federal law," the letter said.
The letter reminded the FCC of its duty to protect the telephone records and calling information of the nation's telecommunications customers.
President Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied a USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
Bush has said the administration's anti-terror surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.
The ACLU was planning to file actions with state utility commissions in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. Other states were expected to be added later.
