The Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union dropped off thousands of petitions yesterday (Thursday) to the state’s Public Service Commission. The A-C-L-U wants an investigation of the federal government’s efforts to gain information on people’s calling patterns. The A-C-L-U has called for state regulators to investigate whether A-T-and-T, BellSouth and Verizon illegally turned over detailed call information to the federal government. The government said the information is needed to understand calling patterns and to try to track down potential terrorists living in the United States. Florida A-C-L-U executive director Howard Simon hopes the three-thousand signature petitions the organization gave to phone regulators will send a message:

“Please investigate this matter. There are thousands of people in the state of Florida who are concerned about the breach of trust they have with their telecommunications company and are concerned about the apparent violation of the privacy rights of millions of people in Florida.”

Vermont has launched its own investigation. The state of Washington is holding hearings and court cases are pending in California and Illinois.