FCC Commissioner Calls for NSA InquiryJournalists and pundits have been speculating on the legality of the NSA’s aggressive effort to acquire and store U.S. phone records.
At least one expert — Michael Copps, the maverick senior Democratic commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission — thinks it’s worth a formal review.
“[T]he FCC should initiate an inquiry into whether the phone companies’ involvement violated Section 222 or any other provisions of the Communications Act,” he announced in a public statement today. “We need to be certain that the companies over which the FCC has public interest oversight have not gone — or been asked to go — to a place where they should not be.”
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Unfortunately, Copps doesn’t have the power to start an investigation on his own. Only FCC chair Kevin Martin can do that. My call to his spokesperson wasn’t immediately returned.
