The Telcos owe us some Money

If your telephone company is one of the companies that decided to take financial compensation from the federal government in exchange for illegally proving your records to them they owe you $1,000. Now IANAL but this seems pretty damn clear cut to me.

The Stored Wire and Electronic Communications and Transactional Records Access, Section 2703(c) outlines exactly five reasons that a phone company can disclose your records to the fed:

a warrant
a court order
the customer’s consent
for telemarketing enforcement
administrative subpoena

Keep in mind that the NSA does not have subpoena power and it is easy to see that not only is your federal government breaking the law by stripping you of your expectation of privacy in your papers and effects but that the Telcos are breaking the law by supplying this info to the Fed.

Section 2707 of the Communications Act says that the phone company are liable for $1000 per individual violation of the Act and outlines a private right of action to any customer “aggrieved by any violation.” - Courtesy of This Damn Blog

for further information, check this out: (Link)