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U.S. Government Intervenes in EFF vs. AT&T
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat May 13, 2006 05:45 PM
from the stepping-into-the-fight dept.
from the stepping-into-the-fight dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that the US government has 'filed a motion on Saturday to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor U.S. communications.' More from the article: " In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker." You may recall a few weeks ago when the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the case. They've now taken the next step required to quash this legal action.
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DOJ To Claim National Security in NSA Case 337 comments
deblau writes "Wired is reporting that the federal government intends to invoke the rarely used 'State Secrets Privilege' in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T. The case alleges that the telecom collaborated with the NSA's secret spying on American citizens. The State Secrets Privilege lets the executive branch step into a civil lawsuit and have it dismissed if the case might reveal information that puts national security at risk."
[+]
The AT&T Whistleblower's Evidence 405 comments
hdtv writes "Wired News has published the details of NSA wiretap and revealed former AT&T technician Mark Klein as the main whistleblower, specifically covering the evidence he presented when he came forward." From the article: "In this recently surfaced statement, Klein details his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T office in San Francisco, and offers his interpretation of company documents that he believes support his case. For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company."
[+]
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."
[+]
Politics: DOJ Still Looks To Have Suit Against Verizon Tossed 79 comments
An anonymous reader writes "With Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell acknowledging that the 'private sector' had a hand in assisting the president's warrantless wiretapping initiative, the DOJ is ever more strenuously demanding that the suit against Verizon be dropped. 'The Justice Department attorneys argue McConnell's statements did nothing to change the fact that it hasn't ever confirmed any of the activities alleged by the class action plaintiffs--and has, in fact, denied the existence of any sort of "dragnet." The arguments made by the class action plaintiffs rest on nothing but "speculation," the attorneys wrote. In the Justice Department's view, litigating the case would still require exposing how the program actually does work--which, it says, would in turn endanger national security.'"
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Duuuuh! (Score:5, Insightful)
In a free country, the judges would give the government the proverbial finger and go ahead with the case. Let's see how it turns up in the US.
Re:They become more and more interchangeable (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ya, fair (Score:5, Insightful)
If I interpre this right...they want the case dismissed because it will discose state secrets? So it's okay to violate civil liberties and then get away with it because to defend it would hinder state security? Well what about my security? Hell what about my RIGHTS? Next to make a phone call you'll have to requisition phone time giving information like: number you're calling, receiving party, topic conversation.
Re:Ya, fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully this will be laughed out of court like so many others.
Just highlights the fact that the fight for freedom never ends. the CIA would act like the KGB if they could. Same with any other government entity.
Parent
Re:Ya, fair (Score:5, Interesting)
In reality, the administration has very nearly accomplished the objective you allude to, i.e. the elimination of whatever respect for the rights of Americans that the intelligence community still has. They have simply been more clever about it. The Spiegel article makes clear that these actions are very serious; I can only hope that the backlash you speak of will actually become manifest.
Parent
If the case is dismissed or otherwise rolled under (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are not sure how to find out some of that information, go to eff.org
The actions of a dictatorship (Score:5, Interesting)
If Mr. Bush is so sure of his assertion that nobody's rights are being trampled and that all of his Executive Orders approving these actions are legal, then he shouldn't be afraid for these actions to face the rule of law.
But then, the administration knows full well that none of this will stand up to a legal challenge.
You are witnessing the actions of a dictatorial administration consumed with the belief in its own superiority and its own place above the law. Bush believes that as President, he can do anything he wants without regard to the law; he believes himself to be invinceable.
Unfortunately, as Congress and the courts stand now, he's right.
Re:The actions of a dictatorship (Score:5, Insightful)
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism by Dr. Lawrence Britt
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14-defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other t
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Re:The actions of a dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
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Text of Government's motion. (Score:5, Informative)
EFF's page on the case: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/ [eff.org]
Fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if this were really the most effective way of rooting out terrorist actions, the fact that they seem to feel they have to shield themselves from judicial inquiry breaks the accountability of such a system. Are judges and juries too dangerous for our security network now? Are constitutional protections now too restrictive for our intellgence needs?
Do we really need an unnacountable set of parasites feeding on our basic rights in order to protect us from an invisible set of enemies now? If so, does the debate about if we need these things need to be outside public consideration?
The 4th Ammendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The 4th Ammendment (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:The 4th Ammendment (Score:5, Informative)
--
GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But the --
GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.
QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But does it not say probable --
GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --
QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --
GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General.
Parent
Re:The 4th Ammendment (Score:5, Informative)
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-nsa-Ha
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STASItastic (Score:5, Interesting)
So Bush's government is derailing justice to protect his compiling vast complex databases [arstechnica.com] of our private communications. In the hands of Iran/Contra conspirators.
After Bush's Justice Department agreed to drop their in-house investigation [google.com] into Bush's NSA wiretap spying because Bush's NSA told them they didn't have security clearance, these lawsuits are the main obstacle to Bush spying on you as much as he can, taxpaid by you.
Next week, NSA whistleblower Chris Strom will reveal to the Senate how the NSA domestic spying goes even further [dailykos.com] than these latest exposures (despite Bush denial at every step). Probably spying on us with our satellites, which they scare us into paying for as part of that useless $BILLION Star Wars missile shield.
Feel safer?
Re:Might be some good here? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If there were good and legitimate reasons, they would have simply obtained warrants.
Parent
Re:Might be some good here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the idea of keeping the government in check by due process of law and constitutional guardrails is that, if it is bad, it doesn't do extreme damage, like turn into a dictatorship. When it's good, then of course it's hindered in its ability to serve citizens quickly and efficiently, but that's the price to pay.
Oh and yes, here's a hint: a good government is so rare you haven't seen one in your lifetime anywhere in the world.
Parent
Re:Might be some good here? (Score:5, Informative)
I think this displays a serious misunderstanding about the law and the way our system works.
The warrants in question are obtained from a court that is explicitly designed to deal with foreign intelligence, called the "Foreign Intelligence Survellience Court". The law in question is called the "Foreign Intelligence Survellience Act" (FISA). They were set up expressly for the purpose of dealing with foreign intelligence issues and the wiretaps necessary to carry out intelligence gathering.
No objection has been put forth that the current law cannot deal with. The one thing that the law wouldn't allow for is abuse of the system. In other words, the fact that they're avoiding the law and the system strongly implies that it's being abused.
The FISA system has been in place for three decades, and has dealt with tens of thousands of wiretap requests quite successfully. And because the "foreign intelligence" apparatus can be abused to harm Americans, that system provides oversight and a check.
Seriously, the arguments you're making could just as easily be used to justify putting cameras and microphones in everyone's houses.
Parent
That's not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course! Good Lord, man, no one I know has any problem with going after terrorists.
The problem here isn't that the system can be used to nail the bad guys. The problem is that there is absolutely no oversight, and it violates the law. Worse, any attempts to apply oversight have been shut down. If the system isn't being abused, then what the hell is all that about?
Our system of government is predicated on the notion that power inevitably corrupts. This system involves a lot of people, and the idea that absolutely all of them are uncorruptable is absurd.
On this very site as we type, it's reported that the U.S. Government is in negotiations to obtain the same sort of private information from European countries. Quite likely, that sharing will go both ways. Furthermore, media companies are closer than you'd like to getting access to that data, too, in order to "fight piracy". Other companies can't be far behind. Are we to believe that everyone who will eventually have access to our private communications without oversight will be on the up-and-up?
It is the potential for abuse that is the problem. And the fact that this administration has actively resisted any attempt to apply checks and balances in order to prevent abuse is extremely troubling.
Parent
Re:Might be some good here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, I take this approach.
Assertion: The government is not the bad guys
Conclusion: It is ok to violate our rights if it's for a good cause.
I would think that the above conclusion seems nonsensical. If we accept that the current administration's plans don't include Big Brother-like control over the American public (a proposal that to some, might seem unrealistic, but I am willing to accept it for the sake of argument), that still leaves the question of whether it is RIGHT to be carrying out these surveillance programs.
The ends almost NEVER justify the means; a superior stating of this adage is the following:
"It is never a question of whether the ends justify the means; the means make the end."
In this case, the means being used are possible encroachments on the civil rights of American citizens. Acceptance of that kind of program can only have one end: surveillance of American citizens themselves.
That is not a power I want my government to have, regardless of how "safe" it might make the country. I am not willing to give up my fundamental rights for the ethereal promise of safety.
The US government is and always was, accountable to the American people. The system of checks and balances was put in place so that the no single branch of government could have enough power to destroy the rights of American citizens; the belief was that if one branch acted improperly, at least one of the others could kick them back in line.
What President Bush is attempting to do is tantamount to suppression of the system of checks and balances put into place specifically to protect us from government abuse.
And I leave you with one final question:
If what Bush has approved is so upstanding and legal, why should he fear a legal challenge? I, for one, would like another branch of government besides President Bush to tell me that my freedoms are not being violated, not because I think President Bush is lying, but because that's what the other branches are there for in the first place. And a healthy dose of suspicion of the government is very necessary to a free democracy; that is the only way a society remains free.
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respect due coordinate branches of government... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What about the other two? (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be so sure. What the government is doing is not something that the Bush administration just came up with. It is doctrine with long-standing in Anglo-American law called the State Secrets Doctrine and it has been successfully invoked in the past, including the very recent past. Only a year ago it was successfully invoked to terminate the whistleblower retaliation lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds [rcfp.org], the former translator for the FBI who revealed incompetance and security breaches. The way it is supposed to work is that the head of the relevant agency (by law the only person who can invoke the doctrine) certifies to the court that continuation of the case would require the disclosure of information damaging to national security. The courts give great deference to such certification.
Even an advocate of open government such as myself can see reasons for having such a doctrine. Suppose that a deep cover agent of the US, who is providing critical intelligence about a hostile foreign power, cheats somebody in a business transaction. The person cheated sues. It could easily be the case that the information disclosed in the course of the suit would make the agent look suspicious. In a case like this, there would be a legitimate reason for the government to want to put a stop to the lawsuit. (One would of course expect the government to assume the financial burden for its action and compensate the injured party, but that's a different issue.)
The problem is that the doctrine relies on the truthfulness of the certification that national security would be damaged if the suit were to proceed. It assumes that he or she is telling the truth in claiming that the damage would really be to national security rather than embaressment to government officials or disclosure of their criminal activities. It also assumes that there isn't a workaround, e.g. limitations on certain evidence, requirement that evidence be seen only by attorneys with security clearance, in camera review of evidence by the judge, so that the only way to prevent the damage is putting an end to the lawsuit.
Unfortunately, it isn't safe to assume that agency heads will certify truthfully. That is particularly true of this administration. I say that not just on grounds of the unusually high levels of dishonesty and and self-serving hallucination in this administration but because we have strong reasons to believe that they have repeatedly lied about security issues. There are the bald-faced lie that the US does not countenance torture, the lies about the reasons for invading Iraq, and the laughable rationalization for warrantless surveillance. They have repeatedly made the bizarre claim that the disclosure of warrantless surveillance itself damaged national security. How could that POSSIBLY be? It told nobody anything about the US's surveillance capabilities, how it is done, or who is targetted. The only thing that was disclosed was that they are not getting warrants. As far as I can see, the only way in which this could lead to a security problem would be if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a leak, so that terrorist organizations were falsely assumin that they knew when they were under surveillance. The Bush administration hasn't come up with any explanation for how this disclosure could have security implications - they just yammer about it loudly and hope that nobody will notice what a crock this is.
I hope that the EFF and other plaintiffs in these suits will be able to persuade the courts to require an offer of proof from the government. Unfortunately, I am concerned that they will not succeed in this, due to the dangerous and undemocratic, but established tradition of deference the government in such cases.
Parent
Re:What about the other two? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because the government has a legitimate reason (from its POV) to want something, doesn't mean it can legitimately have it.
There's no power under the Constitution to quash lawsuits based on vague claims of "national security". Yes, there is a longstanding tradition of allowing it; that doesn't make it right or legal (understanding the Constitution as "law of the land" to have priority over misbegotten case law).
Parent
Parent is WRONG!! Mod him down! (Score:5, Insightful)
See Amendment X:It is The People that have unenumerated Rights.
See Amendment IX:
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