NEW YORK (Reuters) - BellSouth Corp. and AT&T Inc. were named in a $200 billion lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that telecommunications companies violated privacy rights by turning over customer phone records for use in a U.S. government call-tracking program to detect terrorist plots.
BellSouth and AT&T were added to the lawsuit seeking class-action status that was initially filed against Verizon Communications Inc. in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday.
USA Today reported last week that BellSouth, AT&T and Verizon had turned over tens of millions of consumers' telephone records to the National Security Agency (NSA) so it could analyze call patterns.
"We're outraged at the actions of the NSA, the administration and the phone companies," Bruce Afran, a public interest lawyer from New Jersey, said at a news conference. He added that he wanted the companies to understand the massive financial exposure they had on this issue.
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