LPIN Joins Lawsuit Over the Actions of NSA's All-To-Willing Big Corporation Partners Turning Over Telephone Records

Here's the press release:

"LPIN Files as Plaintiff in Telecom Lawsuit
Government Spying; Phone Records Search Prompt Action
Indianapolis, Indiana May 25, 2006 .

“If The Libertarian Party of Indiana doesn’t put itself on the line against our government’s spying on innocent citizens, we don’t deserve to exist,” said LPIN Chairman Mark Rutherford.

That is why the Libertarian Party of Indiana is a plaintiff to the lawsuit filed in Indiana and U.S. courts today against a group of telecommunications companies, including the nation's largest service providers.

The class-action lawsuit challenges the telecommunications companies illegal actions in permitting the National Security Agency ("NSA") and affiliated governmental agencies to intercept, monitor and conduct surveillance on their customers' wireline and wireless calls and internet communications without proper authorization.

“This is worse than McCarthyism,” Rutherford said. “These searches are so broad that people with absolutely no relationship with terrorists have had their phone records searched.” Indianapolis law firm, George & Sipes, filed the class- action lawsuit on behalf of eleven parties. Similar suits have been filed in eight federal courts and one other state court with more expected.

LPIN Executive Director Dan Drexler listed two reasons that Libertarians have joined the lawsuit:

1. “It’s important that we stand on our principles. To affect change in how our government is trampling our civil liberties and privacy, we must force the hands of their all-to-willing big corporation partners. Hopefully through our political pressure, the government's coercive practices will be curbed."

2. “Specific to our Libertarian Party interest, our calls are private party business. It's quite troubling that a rival political organization could so easily command private information related to our political efforts. This is a clear violation of our specially protected rights to political speech."

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About the LPIN

The LPIN affirms the following principles: That all people possess certain unalienable natural rights, and that among these are rights to life, liberty, justly acquired property, and self- governance. That the only moral basis of government is the preservation and protection of unalienable natural rights. That no person or institution, public or private, has the right to initiate the use of physical force or fraud against another person, and that all people are bound, without contract, to abstain from infringing upon the natural rights of other people. That all people are entitled to choose their own lifestyles, as long as they do not forcibly impose their values on others. That the voluntary and unrestricted exchange of goods and services is fundamental to a peaceful and harmonious society."