Verizon: Dutch Ruppersberger

Dutch Ruppersberger: WASHINGTON - Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday that the government's years-long collection of phone records and Internet usage is necessary for protecting Americans and does not trample on their privacy rights. , according to Winnipeg Free Press. The ACLU is claiming standing as a customer of Verizon, which was identified last week as the phone company the government had ordered to turn over daily records of calls made by all its customers. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D- Md., is followed by reporters following a closed all-member briefing on the NSA on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 11, 2013. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta But the country's main civil liberties organization wasn't buying it, filing the most significant lawsuit against the sweeping phone record collection program so far. The American Civil Liberties Union and its New York chapter sued the federal government Tuesday in New York, asking a court to demand that the Obama administration end the program and purge the records it has collected. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.