http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6066688.html
Its official: The Bush administration formally said Friday that it will
try
to halt a lawsuit that accuses AT&T of helping the National
Security Agency spy on Americans illegally.
In an 8-page document (PDF) filed with a federal court in the northern
district of California, the U.S. Justice Department said it will
intervene
in the lawsuit and try to have it tossed out of court.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San
Francisco, filed the class action lawsuit against the federal
government in
January. The suit claims AT&T's alleged cooperation violates free
speech and
privacy rights found in the U.S. Constitution and also contravenes
federal
wiretapping law, which prohibits electronic surveillance "except as
authorized by statute."
A Los Angeles Times article dated Dec. 26 quoted an unnamed source as
saying
the NSA has a "direct hookup" into an AT&T database that stores
information
about all domestic phone calls, including how long they lasted. In
addition,
EFF said earlier this month that it has unearthed possibly-confidential
documents describing a "dragnet" scheme in use by AT&T. (AT&T,
which has
repeatedly declined to comment, has asked that the documents be
returned.)
The Justice Department said in its filing that the "United States
intends to
assert the military and state secrets privilege" and have the case
dismissed.
The state secrets privilege, outlined by the Supreme Court in a 1953
case,
permits the government to derail a lawsuit that might otherwise lead to
the
disclosure of military secrets.
In 1998, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals elaborated on the state
secret
privilege in a case where former workers at the Air Force's classified
Groom
Lake, Nev., facility alleged hazardous waste violations. When requested
by
the workers' lawyers to turn over information, the Air Force refused.
The 9th Circuit upheld a summary judgment on behalf of the Air Force,
saying
that once the state secrets "privilege is properly invoked and the
court is
satisfied as to the danger of divulging state secrets, the privilege is
absolute" and the case will generally be dismissed.
That "absolute privilege" case is still good law and is binding on U.S.
District Judge Vaughn Walker, who will hear EFF's case.
The Bush administration did carefully note, however, that a mere
invocation
of the state secret privilege should not be viewed as confirmation that
AT&T
did anything untoward, saying even the non-existence of the activity is
a
state secret. "The fact that the United States will assert the state
secrets
privilege should not be construed as a confirmation or denial of any of
plaintiffs' allegations, either about AT&T or the alleged
surveillance
activities," the brief said.
Also this week, a Republican senator threatened to pull funding on the
surveillance program unless the Bush administration divulges more
details to Congress.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/29/MNG31IHTHV1.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle
U.S. moves to quash privacy suit against AT&T
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, April 29, 2006
The Bush administration said Friday that it will ask a federal judge to
dismiss a privacy rights group's lawsuit against AT&T over the
company's reported role in a government surveillance program, because
the case might expose state secrets.
In a filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Justice Department
lawyers said the government will assert the "military and state secrets
privilege ... to protect against the unauthorized disclosure in
litigation
of information that may harm national security.''
The information is so sensitive that the entire subject matter of the
case
is a state secret, government lawyers said.
The suit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in January on
behalf of AT&T customers. It accuses the telecommunications company
of
giving the National Security Agency access to its voice and data
network and
its databases of records of customers' calls and e-mails to help the
agency's recently disclosed surveillance program.
President Bush has said that shortly after the terrorist attacks of
Sept.
11, 2001, he authorized the agency to intercept phone calls and e-mails
between U.S. residents and terror suspects abroad without court
approval. A
1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, requires the
government
to obtain a warrant from a court in a secret session for such
surveillance,
but Bush maintains he has the constitutional authority to override the
law.
The lawsuit says AT&T has allowed the federal agency to sift
electronically
through all its messages to find targets for interception.
"It appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to
vacuum-cleaner
surveillance of all the data crossing the Internet, whether that be
people's
e-mail, Web surfing or other data,'' Mark Klein, a former AT&T
technician,
said in a statement released by his lawyers.
He said the federal agency installed a device at the company's San
Francisco office in 2003 capable of scanning huge amounts of data to
locate specific targets.
Company documents obtained by Klein to back up his assertions have been
filed under seal. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is scheduled
to hear arguments May 17 on a request by AT&T to keep the documents
confidential on the grounds that they contain trade secrets.
Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said
Walker should reject the government's request to dismiss the suit.
"The state secret privilege should not be used to protect an illegal
program from judicial scrutiny,'' Opsahl said.
Justice Department lawyers did not specify how the case would endanger
national security. But they but cited rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court
in
1953 and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 affirming the
government's authority to keep military secrets out of court, even if
that
meant dismissing an entire lawsuit.
Email Bob Egelko at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12536627/
Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET April 28, 2006
WASHINGTON - The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501
U.S.
citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card,
telephone and
Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department
said
Friday.
It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed
how
often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a national security
letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain
records
about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without court
approval.
Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot
Act,
the administration's sweeping anti-terror law.
The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in
2005,
according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and
Republican
leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded
information about one person from several companies.
The department also reported it received a secret court's approval for
155
warrants to examine business records last year, under a Patriot Act
provision that includes library records. However, Attorney General
Alberto
Gonzales has said the department has never used the provision to ask
for
library records.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060428-031247-6035r
CIA puts new gags on its contractors
WASHINGTON, April 28 (UPI) -- The CIA has imposed new and tighter
restrictions on former employees remain contractors with it.
The restrictions will apply to books, articles, and opinion pieces
published
by them, National Journal reported Friday.
According to several former CIA officials affected by the new policy,
the
rules are intended to suppress criticism of the Bush administration and
of
the CIA. The officials say the restrictions amount to an unprecedented
political "appropriateness" test at odds with earlier CIA policies on
outside publishing.
The move is a significant departure from the CIA's longtime practice of
allowing ex-employees to take critical or contrary positions in public,
particularly when they are contractors paid to advise the CIA on
important
topics and to publish their assessments, National Journal said.
All current and former CIA employees have long been required to submit
manuscripts for books, opinion pieces, and even speeches to the
agency's
Publications Review Board, which ensures that the works don't reveal
classified information or intelligence sources and methods. The board
has
not generally factored political opinions into its decision-making,
former
CIA officials told National Journal.
Many of those experts believe that public criticism provides an
important
source of alternative analysis -- something the CIA needs to understand
terrorism, global disease, and other emerging threats. But the White
House
and CIA Director Porter Goss view spies-turned-authors as political
liabilities who embarrass an already battered administration, former
officials told the journal.
The CIA is now aggressively investigating -- using polygraphs in some
cases
-- employees who are suspected of leaking classified information to
journalists, and last week the agency said it fired a senior official,
Mary
O. McCarthy, reportedly for having unauthorized contact with the news
media, the report said.
