U.S. Government Moves To Dismiss EFF Case

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.

dupe!

And the original is only two stories below this one...

Re:dupe!

That's DOJ vs NSA, this is US Government vs EFF silly.

Re:dupe!

Well it could be worse... it could have been the very next story rather than at least letting one story slip in between...

Hipocrits

I honestly believe we are highly hipocritical on this subject. We all watch movies like True Lies where the one guy asks, "get me a wiretap on ...", the other goes "Are you crazy? Thats illegal!!" and he responds by saying "And we do it 20 times a day!

Troll.

What a load of rubbish.

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?

Re:Troll.

Seeing the point you want to make, it is slightly hilarious that at least some of the examples you mention are in fact parodies on reality with the explicit purpose to make certain aspects of reality clear to the reader/viewer.

Maybe, just maybe it isn't as

Re:Hipocrits

Man, you're totally right. All this time, I've been watching tv shows where they do stuff that I wouldn't do in real life... I'm such a hypocrite. I'm going to throw away my Office Space DVD, because setting your employer's building on fire is just WRONG, and I should never glorify such actions by supporting such an obviously evil work of fucking fiction. Thank you for opening my eyes.

Re:Hipocrits

The problem is shows that have a message. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, and it's ok to fuck warrants because the other guy is guilty. I don't think I've ever seen a law enforcement show out of the USA where violating due process lead to innocents be

Re:Hipocrits

I don't think I've ever seen a law enforcement show out of the USA where violating due process lead to innocents being screwed over but the reality is it happens all the time (weasel words, I don't know for sure but I'm guessing it's >0).

Most often in

Re:Hipocrits

Burn the mother #$%@#$@# down!

Re:Hipocrits

The glamorization though is not necessarily soley in entertainment. People like going to bed thinking there are shadowy people who are working in a non-official manner to keep us safe. Certainly people want to be james bond, or at least know his counterp

Re:Hipocrits

Yeah, except I never made a movie and I haven't even seen 24 (and don't plan on starting now). So I'm not a part of your "we."

Re:Hipocrits

or we should accept the fact that there are some things we just don't want to know about in the intelligence world.

Well, the whole point is that we do want to know.

Then there is a differnece between fact and fiction. Watch Galaxy Quest [imdb.com]. That is an exelent

Re:Hipocrits

We watch 24 where the guy does everything in his power to get the information he wants. Then we find out, "Oh Me Oh My! The NSA really DOES spy! I'm Outraged!". We should honestly pick a position.

Yea, how the 'ell dare we watch movies & not want NSA to

Re:Hipocrits

I really would not object to what needs to be done to defend against a clear and present danger.

"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."

Woah.

How many cases against the government is the EFF running at the moment, and why is the government using the same "national security" excuse for all of them? On the other hand, I guess the "national security" excuse has worked pretty damn well in the past. It worked for billions of dollars spent on a war...

Re:Woah.

National security is more or less a prerequisite for going to war. Whether it's true or not is another thing.

Re:Woah.

Making a valid argument as to why a certain thing is wrong in no way requires having a working solution, those are 2 entirely different things.

Your way of reasoning is a well known way to avoid hearing about your own mistakes.

Was there really any doubt...

... that 'ol Uncle Sam would do this? I'm not sure if this will be effective or not, since the whole operation (probably, I'm no expert) violates a whole lot of privacy laws. Even considering national security issues, it's a stretch.

Comrads PLEASE!!!

The security of the Motherland outweighs any and all privacy concerns.

--Brought to you by the Republican Proletariat.

whaa

didn't nixon claim that the watergate incidents must not be investigated because it was an issue of national security?

where is our deepthroat today, is no one left in government uncorrupted?

Re:whaa

There's a difference between a civil case (which is what the EFF case is) and a criminal investigation (which is what Watergate was). States Secrets Privilege [wikipedia.org] applies mostly to civil cases, regardless of whether the government is a party to the case or not.

Re:whaa

Illegally spying on citizens isn't criminal?

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..

Re:whaa

where is our deepthroat today...

he lives about 12 miles from me, but he's pretty old now, and I think he's out of the loop...

Today's equivalent is why we know about the NSA wiretapping at all. They're probably dead, or will be soon, or at least at Guanta

Re:whaa

You must be referring to the Republican war against our freedom.

Reminder from history

That the Nazi party in pre-war Germany...at their peak commanded something like 30% of the vote. Until they actually seized power they were an extremist fringe group largely dismissed by the electorate.

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

Until they actually seized power

Actually, they didn't... [wikipedia.org]

Re:Reminder from history

Yes they did. They actively sabotaged all efforts to develop and maintain any sort of democracy. This happend by their fraction systematically undermining almost every vote in the House. It was not uncommon for the nazi party to 'blow up' cabinet after cab

Re:Reminder from history

Not true. The nazi party actually legitimately aquired a majority in the Reichstag, before they burned it down and blamed it on the opposition in order to seize absolute power. He only won 37% of the votes cast (or thereabouts) but the opposing citizens were too divided in opinion.

Re:Reminder from history

Not true.p> Heh, you can't start a post saying Not True and then proceed to agree. Maybe you're misunderstanding the German politcal system? The nazi party actually legitimately aquired a majority in the Reichstag,

Yes, this is true. However, 'Aquired'

In previous news....

EFF had asked a Federal Judge to order AT&T to cease and desist their co-operation with the DoJ because 'of a possibility that personal and corporate secrets would otherwise be disclosed.'

Dupe-ing stories good for once

Normally, I'd quickly join the collective groan upon seeing a story duped, but this is one of those rare cases where it actually comes in handy and adds one more voice trying to get the American public to PAY SOME FUCKING ATTENTION.

Now, if only the NY Times would dupe stories like this. :)

Re:Dupe-ing stories good for once

There should really be email links with stories like this. /.ing email servers with legitimate mail would probably raise some attention.

guilty?

Would the government stepping in for a case like this imply that AT&T is guilty?

Re:guilty?

I'd say it implies that the government is guilty.

Spying on people simply works better....

.. when those being spied upon don't know it.

Now everyone bend over and shoot a moon....

Question:

And this is a serious question, I really don't know the answer to this and no one seems to be addressing or asking it.

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.

Re:Question:

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?

No, you cannot declare something classified to cover your illegal acts. Section 1.7 of Executive order 12958 [wikisource.org] preven

Hit them in the pocketbook

By now it should be obvious that we can't expect the government to play by the rule of law. The best option is to get companies to stop cooperating, and I feel the best way to do that is to cancel your service with At&T, and show them in dollars how much it will hurt them to spy on their customers.

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.

Don't be so alarmist, Mister Government...

Come on, Government - if you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear, right?

(Why does that sound familiar?...)

Re:DANGER! DANGER!

Different sections of slashdot have different color schemes. YRO articles are red.

Re:DANGER! DANGER!

I meant that the front-page header for the article was bright red, as opposed to green like everything else. I think I just loaded the page at the exact time it was posted and I guess I got the subscriber pre-release color, or something. I thought /. was t

Re:DANGER! DANGER!

Oops, not red anymore ... I guess I experienced a glitch in the Matrix.

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

Other than the assertions of the current administration, which many (possibly up to 70% of the population of the US according to presidential approval polls) believe has been shown to be untrustworthy, what is your source that backs up your statement: "As

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

*cough* *9th ammendment* *cough*

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are no

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

First, the President has rights and responsibilities under Article 2 that gives him broad powers in times of conflict and war.

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.

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

broad powers in times of conflict and war

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].

For the last time, we are NOT AT WAR.... sigh.

The "War on Terror" is just a catchphrase, and the actual war, meaning one government's army fighting against the army of an opposing government, on Iraq was over long ago. We have a very large amount of troops deployed for being outside of a war, but that's no different from our "policing action" in a few Asian countries. This is why Bush has tried very hard, and often succeeded, to fabricate a need and provision for special powers, such as creating the Homeland Security department and having them create that bullshit "color coded threat" system, and why the Patriot Act was originally passed: it was supposed to expire, but was then made permanent. The president no longer retains any special war privileges, and aside from the ones granted to him and his cronies through the Patriot Act (which I believe they aren't using this time because they'd validate the claim to an extent that might well warrant many other groups besides the EFF to join in the legal battle, as the court case as it stands has the feds speaking tripledoublespeak (from the filing in TFA):

"When allegations are made about purported classified government activities or relationships, regardless of whether those allegations are accurate, the existence or non-existence of the activity or relationship is potentially a state secret."

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.

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

The whole concept of "times of conflict and war" is a canard. The US has been in near continuous military action - "times of conflict and war" - since World War 2. It's not what the Founders intended. Beyond that though, the moderation on a post arguing st