Posted on 05/17/2006 10:26:37 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO - The question of whether documents obtained during the Bush administration's domestic spying program should remain under seal is one of the central issues in a lawsuit challenging the program.
The lawsuit, brought in U.S. District Court by privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation, accuses AT&T Inc. of illegally cooperating with the National Security Agency to make communications on AT&T networks available to the spy agency without warrants.
The goal of the lawsuit is to dismantle warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States, a practice the Bush administration confirmed in December. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker set a hearing for Wednesday to determine whether the documents supplied to the EFF by a former AT&T technician should remain under seal.
The lawsuit is based largely on the former technician's documents, which the technician and EFF assert show that the NSA is capable of monitoring communications on AT&T's network after the NSA installed equipment in secret rooms at AT&T offices in San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.
AT&T claims the documents involve trade secrets, and has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare." The San Antonio-based telecommunications giant wants the records returned and stricken from the lawsuit.
The company is asking Judge Walker to close parts of Wednesday's court hearing to the public when confidential information is discussed.
The Bush administration, meanwhile, is arguing that the courts cannot decide the constitutionality of the president's asserted wartime powers to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants.
The government is urging Walker to dismiss the case because it threatens to divulge state secrets and jeopardize national security.
On Thursday, USA Today reported the NSA was secretly collecting the records of phone calls by millions of ordinary Americans to build a database of all calls within the country. Two major telecoms — Verizon and BellSouth — have said they did not provide customer call data to the NSA, but USA Today stood by the story. AT&T has not denied involvement.
President Bush announced in December that the NSA has been conducting warrantless surveillance of calls and e-mails thought to involve al-Qaida terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The National Security Agency (NSA) logo is shown on a computer screen inside the Threat Operations Center at the NSA in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. The White House, in an abrupt reversal, will allow the full Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees to review President George W. Bush's domestic spying program, congressional officials said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Director of the CIA nominee USAF Gen. Michael Hayden listens to questions from reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington May 12, 2006. Hayden's chances of winning Senate confirmation to head the CIA depend on how he explains his involvement in eavesdropping and data collection programs, two key senators said on Sunday. (Jim Young/Reuters)
They can with discovery, I'll guess. It's not like this theory hasn't been guessed at for years by the professionally paranoid.
As of last week, Klein was represented by Miles Ehrlich, who until January served as a U.S. attorney in San Francisco, prosecuting white-collar crime. Klein is now also represented by two lawyers from the powerhouse law firm Morrison & Foerster, including James J. Brosnahan, who is best known for representing John Walker Lindh, the Marin County, California, man found fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
There's also Shayana Kadidal, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is separately suing the NSA in an effort to stop what it calls unconstitutional wiretaps. The Center for Constitutional Rights is, according to Wikipedia, "a New York City-based legal non profit organization that legally represents over 150 of the Guantanamo Bay detainees."
A whole lot of dogs sharing fleas on this one.
Interesting that the liberals were all in a tizzy about losing control of our ports where physical goods enter the US but are also in a tizzy about trying to control electronic "goods" entering the US. It's OK to inspect a persons package entering a US port but it is not OK to inspect a persons packet entering the US. I might also note I have had my package pretty closely inspected at the airport as well. :)
Cognitive dissonance at it's finest.
Ooh, secret rooms in office buildings. How Hollywood. LOL
I'm willing to bet the rooms are not secret, even if the equipment and/or it's exact function or nature is and I have no problem with that. I'm also willing to bet it has more to do with internet surveillance than it does with phones.
Bush ought to send Jack Bauer to retreive the documents and kill the lawyers. /fantasy life
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