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U.S. Government Moves To Dismiss EFF Case
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Apr 29, 2006 09:21 AM
from the nothing-to-see-here-honest dept.
from the nothing-to-see-here-honest dept.
iny0urbrain writes "The New York Times reports that the US government has asked a federal judge to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because 'of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed.' The statement concludes by saying: 'Finally, because the United States intends to assert the state secrets privilege and file a dispositive motion to dismiss this action, the United States requests that discovery proceedings be deferred until the government's submission has been considered and heard.' You can view the full text of the government's statement of interest (PDF) on the EFF's website." Sorry, hadn't had my coffee yet this morning, and double posted this one. Sadly, the first one is a mere two stories down. It's also still pouring into the submissions bin, so I'm not the only one not yet awake.
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EFF Case Against AT&T To Go Forward 227 comments
Tyler Too writes "The NSA wiretap lawsuit filed by the EFF will apparently be moving forward. A federal judge has denied the government's request that the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T be dismissed. Among other things, the judge ruled that 'if the government has been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T's role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security.' The case will now move forward, pending a government appeal."
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dupe! (Score:3, Insightful)
Woah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Woah. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Woah. (Score:3, Interesting)
Your way of reasoning is a well known way to avoid hearing about your own mistakes.
Comrads PLEASE!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
--Brought to you by the Republican Proletariat.
whaa (Score:5, Interesting)
where is our deepthroat today, is no one left in government uncorrupted?
Re:whaa (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:whaa (Score:5, Insightful)
the only reason this is a "civil" case, is cause the government is too corrupt to regulate it'self properly at this point.. it's left to the citizens to fight back, and unfortunetly, the only way is through "civil" law..
Parent
Re:whaa (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminder from history (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's oddly coincidental that, even after everything that's happened, Bush's approval rating still is around...
...30%.
Re:Reminder from history (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
In previous news.... (Score:4, Informative)
Dupe-ing stories good for once (Score:5, Funny)
Now, if only the NY Times would dupe stories like this.
Spying on people simply works better.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now everyone bend over and shoot a moon....
Question: (Score:5, Interesting)
Can an illegal act be a state secret in this country? Could, lets say hypothetically, a Congressman or a high ranking official oh, I don't know... kill a hobo. Not because the hobo was a threat to the state mind you, but just because he didn't like hobos. Could he then use the power of his position to make his bumping off of the hobo confidential and be immune from any prosecution on the act?
If the answer is yes then the Judge should dismiss immediately and there would be no accountability for their actions for anyone in the government well enough connected to get something declared a secret. It seems to me that if this were the case, Abramoff and company would have had their shenanagans declared a state secret and still be free. But maybe they just weren't well connected enough. Maybe Dick Cheney could kill a hobo, suck all his blood out of him and eat his heart in some strange ritual and have that information sealed so that he could be forever immune to prosecution.
If on the other hand an illegal act can not be declared a state secret, I think that for this motion to go forward you'd have to have a hearing on whether the wiretapping was legal in the first place. I would hope that this is the case because I want my government officials to be accountable for the things that they do.
Unfortunately I'm not a lawyer and you almost never seem cases like this where the Government's a defendant. It would seem to make sense that illegal actions could not be confidential but this area of the law does seem to be pretty vaguely defined so I wouldn't be surprised if it actually goes the other way.
Hit them in the pocketbook (Score:4, Interesting)
A few weeks ago I cancelled my at&t phone and dsl service. I'd previously been a happy & loyal customer for 7 years. I explained to the cancellation dept why I was ending my service. I spent twenty minutes arguing with the woman on the other line who refused to believe her company would do such things. So I gave her about 5 url's explaining what At&t had done, how several ex-employees had come forward, etc etc. An hour later she called me back after contacting her superiors and the companies legal dept to get their side of the story. They told her (I'm not kidding here), that AT&T was being sued by anti-privacy advocates because the company was refusing to divulge customer information.
Yes, thats right, the companies legal dept is telling the employees that they are being sued for being "too protective" of customer info.
Cancel your service. Tell them why. Make them know the cost is high when they conduct business in this manner.
Troll. (Score:5, Insightful)
Either you're trolling, or you have great difficulty distinguishing between reality and entertainment. Just because something is entertaining does not mean that it is something that is agreed with. These are two completely separate things.
How would you react to the fact that some people watch V for Vendetta, 24, 1984, and True Lies? Would your head explode?
Parent
Re:Troll. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe it isn't as clear cut as you would like it to be..
Re:Hipocrits (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hipocrits (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is these shows are ingraining "Don't restrict us, after all we only go after the guilty ones" into the mind of the viewi
Re:Hipocrits (Score:4, Interesting)
"The targets represent a clear and present danger to the security of the United States."
"The President said that?"
"His words."
"Fine. That makes it all legal. Not any less dangerous, but legal."
Parent
Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
This assumes a war or conflict that can be ended. If it doesn't then the whole article is rubbish and those powers could just be given to the president in all situations, not just in case of war or conflict.
It is obvious that the current govenrment is doing all it can to define the conflict in such a way that it can never be ended, hence it is clear that this conflict is in fact being used to get around the consitution.
I am not trying to suggest that the current US government would follow any racial policies or such similar to the nazi party in Germany in the 1930s, but they are most definitely trying for the same kind of abuse of the democratic system to gather as much power as they can.
Parent
Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
And he went ahead and declared war on an abstract concept! We've always been at war with Eurasia, you know.
As the targets of the program are terrorist or their affiliates, no reasonable person could argue
Open source supports terrorism [slashdot.org].
Copyright infrigement funds terrorism [slashdot.org].
And most importantly: You can't ask who they're really spying on [slashdot.org].
Parent
For the last time, we are NOT AT WAR.... sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, there are very clear provisions for privacy in the Constitution, and I believe the Supreme Court already ruled on this at least once: your communications, in whatever form, are your property and you have the right to keep them private. This is why getting a wiretap is (well, was, and kinda still is, though apparently legal justice magically changes depending on which agency/department of the government you work for) so hard to obtain. This is why unauthorized wiretaps are inadmissable in court; the same rule applies to getting a warrant to search your email or whatever you use. The reason why so many people have the miconception that they don't have the right to privacy is because the rights of citizens were greatly eroded under Rehnquist, for if I recall correctly, the Rehnquist court is the reason why police can't search you when you're walking on the street but can search and open any belongings you have once you step inside a vehicle, amongst other and lesser known trespasses and limitations on personal liberties.
Oh, and lastly, FISA is completely constitutional, and very well cemented into the machinery of the federal government, as the FISA court has great authority and works a little too nicely with intelligence agencies (The infamous CARNIVORE was created at the order of the FISA court), so I don't know why Bush exhibited such baffling stupidity by giving an Executive Order to the NSA for the wiretapping (which does break the law, and the only reason there hasn't been an inquiry is because the Republican controlled House and Senate refuse to even consider any sort of legal action) instead of asking the FISA court to issue an order for the wiretapping to the NSA, which probably wouldn've been completely legal... Perhaps because even the oft-bold FISA court isn't that stupid and brazen to so openly violate the Constitution.
Parent
Re:guilty? (Score:3, Insightful)