2006 at the Federal District Court in Manhattan by Princeton, N.J. based attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran. The lawsuit seeks $1,000 for each violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and would total approximately $5 billion if the court certifies the suit as a class-action lawsuit. Oregon On May 12, 2006, an Oregon man filed a lawsuit against Verizon Northwest for $1 billion. Maine On May 13, 2006, a complaint in Maine was filed by a group of 21 Maine residents who asked the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to demand answers from Verizon about whether it provided telephone records and information to the federal government without customers' knowledge or consent. Maine law requires the PUC to investigate complaints against a utility if a petition involves at least 10 of the utility's customers. California (E.F.F.) Shortly after the NSA call database story surfaced, a San Francisco lawsuit, Hepting v. AT&T, was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Justice Department response On May 14, 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Justice Department called for an end to an eavesdropping lawsuit against AT&T Corp., citing possible damage from the litigation to national security.In 1970, when stolen COINTELPRO documents were released to members of Congress, journalists, and organizations who were named in the files, the administration's response to the disclosures was to warn that any further disclosures "could endanger the lives or cause other serious harm to persons engaged in investigation activities on behalf of the United States." Stone, Geoffrey R., Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, p. 495 In an April 28 Statement of Interest of the AT&T case, the US government indicated that it intends to invoke the State Secrets Privilege in a bid to dismiss the action. Legal status The NSA call database was not approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISC was established in 1978 to secretly authorize access to call-identifying information and interception of communications of suspected foreign agents on U.S. soil. Stanford Law School's Chip Pitts provided an overview of the relevant legal concerns in The Washington Spectator. Separate from the question of whether the database is illegal under FISA, one may ask whether the call detail records are covered by the privacy protection of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S.