AT&T. Your world, delivered (to the Government).
A federal judge dealt a blow to AT&T Wednesday, ruling that secret documents supposedly linking the company to a vast domestic surveillance program can be used in a lawsuit. The suit, filed in January by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says AT&T illegally gave the National Security Agency the telephone and Internet records of millions of customers without a court order or warrant (see "Can you hear that on your end — a faint rendition of ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’?").
In a standing-room-only hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rejected AT&T’s motion asking the court to order EFF to return the documents, noting, "Plaintiffs say they got the documents innocently, therefore, their possession is in no way improper and in no way illegal." But Walker also ordered the documents, which allegedly show AT&T providing the government with access to millions of e-mail messages, Web browsing sessions and phone calls, sealed on the grounds that they may contain trade secrets.
So what happens next? The Justice Department has moved to have the case thrown out because litigating it could expose details of anti-terrorism surveillance efforts. That motion has been met with some skepticism by Judge Walker. "What you have in essence is a common law privilege, while what the plaintiffs are asserting are constitutional claims," he said yesterday. "How am I going to be able to weigh those?" But that question may well evaporate in the face of DOJ claims that the case could compromise national security if it’s allowed to move forward. According to William Weaver, a law professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, motions to dismiss like this one are rarely rejected. "The case is going away. Courts almost never challenge the government on this," Weaver told the Washington Post. "It is the most deferred-to principle in law and a judge will not touch it."
I wonder how a challenge made on state grounds would fare, since _national_ security is a federal matter.
In California, we not only have a privacy clause in our Constitution; we also have statutes that specifically prohibit telcos from distribution personal calling data.
We also have a US Supreme Court ruling in the famous “Pruneyard” decision that says CA can exceed the US in the furtherance of civil liberties.
We shall see what the judge rules: it’s not the first case this year in which a judge surprised the pundits by actually ruling for the people.
how about chanigng the headline to “Your world, delivered. To the governement.”.
Why do I sense that Adolph Hitler may have used the same rationale on national security, to gain control of and ultimately destroy his nation?
I am an ATT subscriber, phone and net, and I had a political cartoon of the elder and younger bush removed from my email. The statement “The image has been removed for reasons of national security” was left in the email. It was a political cartoon stating the reason why Poppy did not go to Baghdad in 1991. Since when is a quote from a former president a “threat”?? This, to me, is a violation of my first and fourth amendment rights. I know I am singing to the choir, but watching Hayden sit there and lie yesterday infuriated me!!!!
The suit was filed in JANUARY?
it is common practice for law enforcement
people to look at the mud, or list of
all numbers called by a phone and all
numbers calling a phone, but they have
to have probable cause.
and that should be the same issue here.
did the nsa have probable cause to
look at these phone records?
none of us want another incident like
the destruction of the world trade center.
but most of us are innocent and we have
privacy rights.