Verizon says it was "compelled" to provide the records and "complied," but its processes "could have been better suited"
Company testimony by Chris Miller, senior vice president and general counsel of Verizon Consumer Group, to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee
“We were compelled to provide this information under law, and we complied. No matter who is the target of a subpoena Verizon cannot ignore a valid legal demand. But our processes could have been better suited to meet what was a new and unique set of circumstances for us, and for other companies.”
Source and context
Original text
About this source
Verizon's written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law about the special counsel subpoenas it received and the changes it has made in handling requests involving members of Congress.
Original text
About this source
AT&T's written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law about the subpoenas it received from the special counsel's office in 2022 and 2023.
Original text
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Verizon's letter to Grassley describing the May 25, 2023 grand jury subpoena from the special counsel's office, its date range, the nondisclosure order and the records Verizon produced.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Miller's written testimony said Verizon received a federal grand jury subpoena from the special counsel's office for 12 telephone numbers, seeking subscriber information and call detail records for January 4 through 7, 2021. The subpoena listed only numbers, and a judge issued a nondisclosure order.
After the quotation
Miller said Verizon now brings requests involving members to senior leadership, verifies with law enforcement that it intends to seek a member's number, and will notify the member and challenge any nondisclosure order that prevents notice. AT&T's general counsel told the same hearing that AT&T's lawyers asked the special counsel's office about the Speech or Debate Clause on a May 2023 subpoena for two members' accounts and the office did not respond or pursue it.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Verizon said it complied with what it treated as a valid legal demand and could not ignore one, while acknowledging its processes could have been better and adopting new steps to notify members. It takes no position on whether the subpoenas or the nondisclosure orders were proper. Because it neither condemns nor defends the collection and combines compliance with an admission about its own process, we labeled it Mixed or conditional.
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Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
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“the Department of Justice's own Public Integrity Section, it did give you explicit warnings that going after the phone records of members of the legislative branch carried what they referred to as litigation risks due to these constitutional privileges. ... you never actually told Chief Judge Boasberg that you were targeting 19 members of a coordinate branch of government, the legislative branch. ... There should be an articulated basis for secrecy when you're asking for a gag order. ... in a way that arguably makes what Richard Nixon did in Watergate look like a Sunday picnic.”Read statement