Being a Verizon customer, along with being a Comcast subscriber, I would like to file a class-action lawsuit against both companies for allowing my personal e-mail and cellular phone calls to be made available to the government. I agreed to their privacy agreement. They agreed to the privacy agreement because they wrote it, and I did not change anything about it. They failed to adhere to their rules.
I know the government requested the information from both companies, but we can still sue and allow the courts and a jury to make the decision on the legality of their actions. We have no defense against the government, but we do against companies that allow our rights to be taken from us.
We, the people, need a course of action against the government; our only recourse is to sue the companies that allow the government to go against our constitution, which gives us the right to privacy.
Ronald Piretti
Royal Palm Beach
Verizon has the right to disclose information about individuals. Not only to respond to legal process but has the discretion to determine if and when activity constitutes a “danger of death or serious physical injury to any person or other emergencies”.
Perhaps because the agreement is arguably a “contract of adhesion”, meaning that the customer either takes it or leaves it and can offer no changes, the courts would construe the terms of the agreement strictly against Verizon.
Class actions are very expensive and the amount of damages may not justify a class action.
The following is an excerpt from Verizon’s privacy agreement.
“We may disclose information that individually identifies our customers or identifies customer devices in certain circumstances, such as:
• to comply with valid legal process including subpoenas, court orders or search warrants, and as otherwise authorized by law;
• in cases involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person or other emergencies;
• to protect our rights or property, or the safety of our customers or employees;”