Re: EFF Sues AT&T Over Phone Surveillance

A civil liberties group sued AT&T Inc. on Tuesday for its alleged role
> in helping the National Security Agency spy on the phone calls and > other communications of U.S. citizens without warrants.

I am very sensitive to privacy issues. However, this particular case isn't so easy. Clearly, part of it is motivated by politics, that is, people are upset because they don't like Bush in general, not because of the specific issue involved and I don't like that.

As the "moral principle", this country was attacked in an act of war and clearly the govt has the duty and responsibility to take defensive measures against a further attack. Spying on the enemy and possibly traitors within this country is a classic activity in time of war.

IMHO, part of the issue here is what was done with the information gained. If they turned it over to prosecutors for other routine crimes (ie tax evasion, drug running, import laws), I would object since normal domestic search warrants were not obtained. But AFAIK that was not done.

It also seeks billions of dollars in damages.

"Damages" means the plaintiff suffered a monetary loss in some way as a result of the defendant's action. Unless the govt utilized the gleaned information against someone, I'm not sure there was any loss suffered. I am also very hesitant about the class action status, I believe that is overused.

"Our main goal is to stop this invasion of privacy, prevent it from > occurring again and make sure AT&T and all the other carriers > understand there are going to be legal and economic consequences when > they fail to follow the law," said Kevin Bankston, an EFF staff > attorney.

Did the EFF sue all other carriers as well? Activist groups like to pick on the big guys, but that is not fair. If EFF has a true case against the carriers, it has a responsibility to sue every carrier.

The White House has vigorously defended the program, saying the > president acted legally under the constitution and a post-Sept. 11 > congressional resolution that granted him broad power to fight > terrorism.

I am not in a position to say if the White House was right or wrong in this action.

However, it would appear that it is unfair to order the carriers to make that decision either. I can't help but wonder that the carriers received what appeared to be legitimate official wiretap requests and they complied accordingly. I'm pretty sure if some unknown Fed agent showed up with a wiretap demand without documentation he wouldn't get very far. However, I suspect this came through normal channels that the carriers were used to working with, and thus they had no reason to suspect there may have been a question on them.

"We are quite confident that discovery would reveal evidence proving > our allegations correct," said Kevin Bankston, an EFF staff attorney.

That's very nice, but "discovery" is an expensive time consuming process. Who's gonna pay for AT&T's cost? We are!

"I think we are going to definitely have a fight on state-secret > issues," Bankston said. "I would also point out that the state-secret > privilege has never come up in a case where the rights of so many have > been at issue."

Censorship of civilian activities was a major activity in WW II. Even back then it was not particularly appreciated, but it was done.

As mentioned, I strongly believe in privacy and normally support EFF efforts. But I'm not so sure on this particular case and I wonder if it's grandstanding. I can think of a great many other privacy issues EFF ought to be concerned about, although they're not very glamorous or headline making.

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