Since We’re Talking About Disclosure and Free Speech…

Check out this extraordinary claim by Verizon regarding its disclosure of tons of customer phone records to the NSA:

“Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity,” says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company’s owner promises to its customers. Verizon argues that, if the EFF and other groups have concerns about customer call records, the only proper remedy “is to impose restrictions on the government, not on the speaker’s right to communicate.”

Verizon argues that EFF and the ACLU are harassing them, and claims that “the entire lawsuit is a giant SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit [designed to] deter the company from exercising its First Amendment right to turn over customer calling information to government security services.”

Maybe the AACS-disclosers should have tried to provoke some CALEA demand for it!