Wired News: Feds Go All Out to Kill Spy Suit
This is quite possibly one of the worst abuses of power I have seen from this administration. The case brought against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a privacy watchdog organization) accuses the company of collaborating with the federal government to illegally gather wholesale wiretaps of all telephone and data communications traversing some of the company’s network. This isn’t some wild accusation either. The EFF has documentation and firsthand accounts of the setup of the wiretapping equipment. The invokation of the state secrets privilege is the highest card the administration can play to stop the case. Their use of this common law precedent smacks of a facist regime bent on controlling information and directly undermines the judicial system. The only hope we have of learning the truth in this case is the slim chance the Judge will allow it to continue.
EFF has a copy of the DOJ’s notice of intent to claim dismissal based on the state secrets privilege linked on their website. Their rationale is fairly clear in this statement: “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.”
The Bush administration has publicly admitted to domestic wiretapping when one party to the call is outside our borders. Since this has been discussed in detail publicly it doesn’t necessarily make sense to dismiss the case on the grounds that state secrets might be revealed. The case could be heard in secret and argued by lawyers with security clearance. By filing this statement the DOJ is saying that even that isn’t enough. Let’s ponder this for a minute. Why wouldn’t that be enough?
Lets forget for the moment the legality of the President ordering the NSA to spy on us without a FISA warrant. If the NSA in performing this task directed AT&T to scoop up not only the international traffic, but everything else as well they would be in violation of the law. If this was discovered in the course of litigating this case it would be damning. Either way, are we really to believe that the technical details of a wiretap merit the status of state secret? I don’t know about the rest of you, but this smells like a coverup to me.