AT&T Sued Over NSA Eavesdropping

[DealMonkey]

Big round of applause for the EFF in bringing this suit. I, for one, am sick and tired of Corporate America flipping over like a cheap whore and divulging our private data. If they're not losing our data to hackers, they're turning it over to the feds without our knowledge.

AT&T Sued Over NSA Eavesdropping

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on Tuesday, accusing the telecom company of violating federal laws by collaborating with the government's secret, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens' phone and internet usage.

The suit (link), filed by the civil liberties group in federal court in San Francisco, alleges AT&T secretly gave the National Security Agency access to two massive databases that included both the contents of its subscribers' communications and detailed transaction records, such as numbers dialed and internet addresses visited.

"Our goal is to go after the people who are making the government's illegal surveillance possible," says EFF attorney Kevin Bankston. "They could not do what they are doing without the help of companies like AT&T. We want to make it clear to AT&T that it is not in their legal or economic interests to violate the law whenever the president asks them to."

One of AT&T's databases, known as "Hawkeye," contains 312 terabytes of data detailing nearly every telephone communication on AT&T's domestic network since 2001, according to the complaint. The suit also alleges that AT&T allowed the NSA to use the company's powerful Daytona database-management software to quickly search this and other communication databases.

That action violates the First and Fourth amendments to the Constitution, federal wiretapping statutes, telecommunications laws and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, according to the complaint.

The suit, which relies on reporting from the Los Angeles Times, seeks up to $22,000 in damages for each AT&T customer, plus punitive fines.

AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes a little more than a month after The New York Times reported that in 2001, President Bush ordered the NSA to begin warrantless monitoring of Americans' overseas phone calls and internet usage.

The administration defends the eavesdropping program, saying it is only targeting communications to and from suspected terrorists, that government lawyers review the program every 45 days and that Congress authorized the president to track down 9/11 co-conspirators, thereby giving the president the ability to bypass wiretapping laws.

Some Senate Democrats and Republicans, along with civil libertarians and former government officials, counter that the wiretaps are simply illegal and that wiretapping warrants can be acquired easily if the government has probable cause to believe an American is affiliated with terrorists.

The government is not named in the lawsuit, though it is already being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union over the surveillance program.

Bankston estimates that millions of people nationwide would be eligible to join the class action, pushing the possible total fines into the billions. However, he expects the administration will try to kill the lawsuit by invoking the rarely used state secrets privilege.

"If state secrecy can prevent us from preserving the rights of millions upon millions of people, then there is a profound problem with the law," says Bankston.

Linkage

 

[Genx87]

Good luck

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Good

fixed

 

[Meuge]

I have to remember to donate a couple hundred dollars to EFF this month.

 

[Slick5150]

Agreed. Good for them.

 

[Bowfinger]

(From the <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://[sic][/i]searches ...]http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=52&threadid=1786990&ente
thread=y">Warantless [i</a> thread.)

Here's an interesting development (courtesy Slashdot). The EFF has filed a class-action suit against AT&T for "Collaboration with Illegal Domestic Spying Program":

EFF's Class-Action Lawsuit Against AT&T for Collaboration with Illegal Domestic Spying Program

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

In December of 2005, the press revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that ignored the careful safeguards set forth by Congress. This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities," suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

But the government did not act-and is not acting-alone. The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program.

AT&T Corp. (which was recently acquired by the new AT&T, Inc,. formerly known as SBC Communications) maintains domestic telecommunications facilities over which millions of Americans' telephone and Internet communications pass every day. It also manages some of the largest databases in the world, containing records of most or all communications made through its myriad telecommunications services.

The lawsuits alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T continues to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of Americans. EFF, on behalf of a nationwide class of AT&T customers, is suing to stop this illegal conduct and hold AT&T responsible for its illegal collaboration in the government's domestic spying program, which has violated the law and damaged the fundamental freedoms of the American public."

Substantially more information at the link. I think this is great news. The more pressure we can put on the Bush administration and its collaborators, and the more we can keep this in the public eye, the less likely it is to be abused.

 

[Bowfinger]

(From the Warantless searches thread.)

Here's an interesting development (courtesy Slashdot). The EFF has filed a class-action suit against AT&T for "Collaboration with Illegal Domestic Spying Program":

EFF's Class-Action Lawsuit Against AT&T for Collaboration with Illegal Domestic Spying Program

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

In December of 2005, the press revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that ignored the careful safeguards set forth by Congress. This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities," suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

But the government did not act-and is not acting-alone. The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program.

AT&T Corp. (which was recently acquired by the new AT&T, Inc,. formerly known as SBC Communications) maintains domestic telecommunications facilities over which millions of Americans' telephone and Internet communications pass every day. It also manages some of the largest databases in the world, containing records of most or all communications made through its myriad telecommunications services.

The lawsuits alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T continues to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of Americans. EFF, on behalf of a nationwide class of AT&T customers, is suing to stop this illegal conduct and hold AT&T responsible for its illegal collaboration in the government's domestic spying program, which has violated the law and damaged the fundamental freedoms of the American public."

Substantially more information at the link. I think this is great news. The more pressure we can put on the Bush administration and its collaborators, and the more we can keep this in the public eye, the less likely it is to be abused.


(Edit: sorry for the dupe. The prior post above is corrupt somehow. I cannot edit or quote it.)

 

[Deleted member 4644]

nice

 

[CycloWizard]

:thumbsup:

 

[fornax]

Good to see that my donations to the EFF go to a good cause!

 

[wirelessenabled]

Great! Double great!!

I have AT&T long distance. Hope the suit wins and I get the $22,000 + punitive damages. Could donate it all to balancing out the Congress this next election:thumbsup:

 

[Dissipate]

Go EFF! :thumbsup:

 

[Rainsford]

Good...

But not for the obvious reason. Sure, if the law was violated, I'll be glad those responsible are punished. But even beyond that, the more this is a legal battle, the better off we are. The assertion by some people is that actions that fight terrorism, ANY actions that fight terrorism, are somehow outside of normal legal channels. I think it's important we remind them that this is not the case.

 

[1prophet]

This is all fine and good but what can you do when all networking equipment has a secret back door, and you get to pay for it too.:Q


The FCC's proposal would require that all VoIP hardware vendors comply with the wiretap mandate within 18 months of the order's effective date, but Templeton claims that many router vendors have already added the wiretap capability to their shipping products, despite the fact that the FCC hasn't yet issued any instructions for doing so. Templeton adds that the cost of implementing this proposal will be passed onto the businesses and consumers who use the products.

 

[Linux23]

This is so EFFing scary.

 

[Agrooreo]

Great news. Think Ill have to look into donating some cash to them for this one.