The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and affiliates in 19 other states filed complaints with utility regulators or state attorneys general demanding investigations into whether telephone companies illegally let the National Security Agency spy on customers.
"We do believe the law of the state of Nevada has been violated," said Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada.
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The ACLU cited a story in USA Today that reported AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon provided telephone records to the NSA.
Peck noted that the government and telephone companies have not fully responded to requests for disclosure about the information provided to the NSA.
"There is no way of knowing with certainty what they are or are not doing," Peck said.
Kristy Wahl, a spokeswoman for the Public Utilities Commission, said the agency's general counsel will review the ACLU complaint and recommend whether the commission should investigate.
AT&T Nevada is the dominant local telephone company serving Pahrump and areas of Northern Nevada, including Reno.
Verizon has certificates for wireless service and other telephone services in Nevada, according to the ACLU complaint.
The ACLU did not complain about Sprint Nextel, which provides wireless telephone service. It was the dominant local phone company in Las Vegas before spinning off those operations to Embarq Corp.
"Due to the sensitive nature of the topics currently being reported in the press related to the National Security Agency and their intelligence gathering programs, Sprint Nextel is not discussing these matters," a company statement said. "Sprint is committed to protecting the privacy of our customers. We only disclose customer information when necessary to comply with the law."
Vicki Soares, a spokeswoman for Embarq, said decisions regarding NSA access to phone records were made before the spinoff.
Like Sprint, AT&T officials limited their comment to a statement, which said: "The fact is, AT&T does not give customer information to law enforcement authorities or government agencies without legal authorization. We have an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation."
Verizon Communications' headquarters in New York were closed when ACLU officials made their announcement.
Peck said the carefully worded statements from AT&T and Verizon fail to deny allegations about providing the information and data to NSA.
The Nevada culture has "great respect for personal rights and personal privacy," Peck said.
"We certainly would expect that our state Public Utilities Commission would do its job and do it responsibly. We will do whatever we need to do to defend these privacy rights."
