Five phone customers filed suit this week against Hawaiian Telcom and other phone companies alleging the companies allowed the National Security Agency to monitor their domestic and international long distance phone calls.

The suit filed in US. District Court in Honolulu seeks class action status. The lawsuit coincides with protests over a secretive effort to combat terrorism in the United States, which has been criticized by privacy advocates as an invasion of privacy.

Under a practice first disclosed in May, the NSA gathered call records of tens of millions of Americans from companies such as AT&T and Verizon. Companies named in this week's suit include Verizon Wireless, Nextel West Corp., Sprint and Cingular Wireless. The plaintiffs include Charmaine Crockett, Joris Watland, Anakalia Kaluna, Kim Coco Iwamoto and William Massey, all of Honolulu.

Plaintiffs seek an injunction against the data gathering effort as well as damages such as $100 a day or $10,000 for each defendant. Stephen Laudig, attorney for the plaintiffs, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman Ann Nishida said the company wouldn't comment on the complaint, which it had yet to receive. In May this year Hawaiian Telcom said it had not received requests to provide data to the NSA since the company formed in May 2005.

Attempts to reach the other phone companies for comment were unsuccessful.