NO SECRETS HERE

U.S. District Court in Bangor today is expected to decide whether the Maine Public Utilities Commission can ask Verizon officials to confirm they told the truth through press releases last year about the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program. The Justice Department argues that this is entirely a federal question and a discussion about what is accurate could disclose secret information.

But the PUC is far from digging for official secrets. It has not asked about the kinds of information a phone company might collect, nor is it asking about specific instances of information being collected. It simply seeks confirmation of statements volunteered by Verizon and sent out in the form of two Verizon press releases.

A PUC hearing, scheduled for Friday, is in response to a statutory deadline for Verizon to either confirm or deny the accuracy of these releases, which said news stories about the company’s involvement with the NSA were false, or state why the company could not respond to the request. If Verizon fails to do any of those things, the PUC could hold it in contempt, which means the possibility of significant fines or imprisonment until it meets the order.

The Justice Department is seeking a temporary restraining order from District Court to stop the PUC hearing, but District Court Judge John Woodcock might observe that the care with which the PUC has proceeded in this contentious case provides an opportunity to establish how far the PUC’s jurisdiction extends. Certainly, the level of information sought by the PUC is so benign that to allow it to proceed cannot pose a threat to anyone, unless Verizon was less than truthful in its press releases.

The duty of the PUC is to carry out Maine statutes that say “telephone subscribers have a right to privacy and the protection of this right to privacy is of paramount concern to the state” and that to “exercise their right to privacy, telephone subscribers must be able to limit the dissemination of their telephone numbers to persons of their choosing.”

If anything, the PUC could be considerably more aggressive in pursuit of its duties. It has chosen to take small steps slowly as it feels its way through this difficult issue. But the next step today should be easy for the District Court to take.