http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=mktw&guid=%7B2B40006A%2D91CE%2D4874%2D8EE6%2DD4112011C4DA%7D&symbol=SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A federal judge in Chicago on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against AT&T Inc. (T : 28.95, +1.17, +4.2% ) to stop the company from providing telephone records to the government, according to reports.
U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said requiring AT&T to disclose if it has turned over telephone records to the federal government could provide insight on the country's intelligence activities to its adversaries, the reports said.
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The Chicago suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists who said an NSA program that gathered phone company records violated their constitutional rights, according to the reports.
Justice Department attorneys argued for the case to be dismissed because AT&T would violate the law against divulging state secrets by denying or confirming whether it had provided telephone records to the spy agency, the reports said.
Earlier this week, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco denied the government's and AT&T's motion to dismiss a similar case, saying that the existence of the surveillance program could not be considered a state secret because it has been widely reported by the media, and both the government and AT&T have indicated it exists.
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