Bush (and AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Sprint Nextel and Cingular Wireless) v New Jersey Consumers

David Chen and Matt Richtel for the NY Times report that the New Jersey attorney general has issued subpoenas to five telephone companies to determine whether any of them violated the state's consumer protection laws by providing records to the National Security Agency. … On Wednesday, the United States filed a lawsuit to block the subpoenas, setting up a legal showdown pitting the state's authority to protect consumers' rights against the federal government's national security powers. --- As a matter of national security policy, the dispute represents the latest twist in the controversy over the boundaries of domestic spying and personal privacy. But as a matter of government practice and legal precedent, the dispute is significant because it transforms what had primarily been a fight between the federal government and civil liberties groups into a far knottier one pitting federal authorities against state ones. … According to some critics, one potential weakness of the government's state-secrets claim is that Ms. Farber — as well as Gov. Jon S. Corzine and Richard L. Cañas, the state director of homeland security — has top federal security clearance, and might well not divulge any sensitive national security information she received as a result of the subpoenas. "Our state officials are cleared for security purposes all the time," said Bruce Afran, a lawyer in Princeton, N.J., who, with his partner, Carl Mayer, filed a federal suit in Manhattan last month against Verizon.