AT&T Whistleblower: Spy Bill Creates 'Infrastructure for a Police State'

[madfloridian]

Remember the fellow who revealed the AT&T "network monitoring room being built in AT&T's internet switching center that only NSA-approved techs had access to."

His name is Mark Klein and he is speaking out again about the FISA bill which will pass in July. Since many in this forum no longer believe that the ACLU knows much about our privacy...then you may not believe this guy either.

Police State Infrastructure

Gee, he used the word police state. That is going to upset many folks who are getting all squishy on privacy now.

Mark Klein, the retired AT&T engineer who stepped forward with the technical documents at the heart of the anti-wiretapping case against AT&T, is furious at the Senate's vote on Wednesday night to hold a vote on a bill intended to put an end to that lawsuit and more than 30 others.

"Wednesday's vote by Congress effectively gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies and endorses an all-powerful president. It’s a Congressional coup against the Constitution. The Democratic leadership is touting the deal as a "compromise," but in fact they have endorsed the infamous Nuremberg defense: "Just following orders." The judge can only check their paperwork. This cynical deal is a Democratic exercise in deceit and cowardice."

Here is more about what Klein said.

Klein continues:

Congress has made the FISA law a dead letter--such a law is useless if the president can break it with impunity. Thus the Democrats have surreptitiously repudiated the main reform of the post-Watergate era and adopted Nixon’s line: "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal." This is the judicial logic of a dictatorship.

And this:

The surveillance system now approved by Congress provides the physical apparatus for the government to collect and store a huge database on virtually the entire population, available for data mining whenever the government wants to target its political opponents at any given moment—all in the hands of an unrestrained executive power. It is the infrastructure for a police state.

Gee, he sure does sound like a real lefty fringe guy. Maybe we should be cautious about listening to him.

Klein in 2006 "saw a network monitoring room being built in AT&T's internet switching center that only NSA-approved techs had access to. He squirreled away documents and then presented them to the press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation after news of the government's warrantless wiretapping program broke."

The documents in pdf can be found at the link.

[midnight]

1. Who profits from a police state?

[Uncle Joe]

4. The prison industry, and the sellers of video and recording equipment.

The mega wealthy and those; who believe in corporate supremacy over the people, although I believe that is a short term gain as eventually the state will take over the corporations when the leaders become full fledged dictators.

[Joanne98]

17. The elites. They fear their own people. It's hard to overthrow them in a police state.

[madfloridian]

2. The FISA bill will kill the lawsuit that came from his revelation about the spy room

"The lawsuit that resulted from his documents is now waiting on the 9th U.S. Appeals Court to rule on whether it can proceed despite the government saying the whole matter is a state secret. A lower court judge ruled that it could, because the government admitted the program existed and that the courts could handle evidence safely and in secret.

But the appeals court ruling will likely never see the light of day, since the Senate is set to vote on July 8 on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which also largely legalizes Bush's warrantless wiretapping program by expanding how the government can wiretap from inside the United States without getting individualized court orders."

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/att-whistleblow.html

There are consequences when you pass laws for reasons of expediency.

[bjobotts]

27. Why so cheecky?Everyone I know already knows this.Donate to pac blue to rid dems supporting this

[madfloridian]

28. Perhaps you were not aware ....

of the attacks on my other posts on the topic. It is not popular to post about. I donated to the act blue page already, the one linked from Greenwald's column.

http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa

[nc4bo]

3. oh, it's just one more way to move us into the new global economy and NWO.

...well that was my first thought anyway.

I'm a very suspicious person by nature and it doesn't mean I'm right.

Not to go OT but i have major suspicions regarding the move to all digital tv and what happens to the vacant airwaves, plans to sanitize and control the internet, it goes on and on.

[madfloridian]

5. If the AG certifies a letter was sent...judge must dismiss cases against telecoms.

The judge can ask to see the paperwork, but he does not have leeway to decide on legality.

"The bill forces the district court judge handling the consolidated cases against telecoms to dismiss the suits if the Attorney General certifies that a government official sent a written request to a phone or internet provider, saying that the President approved the program and his lawyers deemed it legal. Judge Vaughn Walker of the California Northern District can ask to see the paperwork, but would not be given leeway to decide if the program was legal."

Wow.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Gee, you don't think DOJ would backdate any letters, do yoou?

[L. Coyote]

56. Like te one they took to Ashcroft's hospital bed??

[madfloridian]

6. Pelosi addresses lawsuits involving Klein's revelations

"The case against AT&T surfaced after a former company technician came forward with documents showing how telephone and computer email cables were being routed into a locked room in the company's Folsom Street office.

"They show that there was spying going on, that the government had installed equipment in AT&T's network to do that," says Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician. AT&T didn't deny the claim directly, but said they wouldn't have done it without legal authorization.

Friday, as Walnut Creek Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher presided over the House, representatives voted overwhelmingly to grant immunity to the telecoms if the companies can show they were acting under orders from the president.

"I do not believe that the pending lawsuits would have achieved what we would have liked them to do," says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi says an inspector general's report will get to the truth of what happened. However, a senior staff attorney for the watchdog group that was suing AT&T says the Democratic lawmakers, including Pelosi, gave in to political pressure."

[PassingFair]

16. They will NOT give up the data-mining.

They are addicted to it.

They are giving immunity because they
do NOT want a discussion on this issue.

[JDPriestly]

20. Depends on how you define "we."

Only the plaintiffs can decide whether the lawsuits would have achieved what hey want. This is not Pelosi's call. How arrogant. Who needs courts if Congress gets to decide what "we" want? After all, what did we elect the president and Congress for? Oh, of course, to decide the merits of cases.

So now we have the president usurping the powers of Congress - and legislating through signing statements and executive orders.
And the Congress usurping the powers of the courts - adjudicating cases pending in the courts before they can be decided by those pesky judges.

It's about time that the courts step in and defend their role in government before they are completely emasculated and rendered tools of the legislature and the executive.

What has happened to the idea of separation of powers?

[JAbuchan08]

23. and of course the courts reinterpret the constitution to suit THEIR own interests

all three branches are complicit in the overthrow of the constitution, must especially the bill of rights and the division of powers.

[slipslidingaway]

7. OT - This also serves to discourage future whistleblowers n/t

[KT2000]

8. Is Klein Anonymous,

who posted on DailyKos for a while?

[madfloridian]

11. Not sure. Anon posted on TPM as well.

Not sure who that was.

[Wilms]

9. .

[windoe]

10. I guess they ran out of enemies overseas

that only leaves us. Military Industry must have an enemy to stay in business!!!! They have truly gone nuts, like rabid dogs they are-irrational and insane. If nothing else, the money alone being frittered away on these stupid projects is treacherous.

[madfloridian]

13. Amazing number of groups have formed a coalition to fight this bill.

Yet here at a Democratic forum those of us who speak out are frowned upon. Look at the groups in this coalition...

Coalition Opposes Senator Bond's FISA Legislation

I found this link from a GOP site. So they call it Kit Bond's bill. I call it Steny Hoyer's bil.

The bill would authorize massive warrantless surveillance.

The bill would require no individualized warrant even when an American’s communications clearly are of interest to the government.

The bill would curtail effective judicial review of surveillance.

The bill would grant retroactive immunity for wrongdoing.

The bill would not provide a reasonable sunset.

Here are the groups:

American Civil Liberties Union

American Library Association

Arab-America Anti-Discrimination Committee

Association of Research Libraries

Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Center for Democracy & Technology

Center for National Security Studies

Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Strategies

Defending Dissent Foundation

Doug Bandow, Vice President for Policy, Citizen Outreach Project

DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fairfax County Privacy Council

Friends Committee on National Legislation

League of Women Voters of the United States

Liberty Coalition

MAS Freedom

OMB Watch

Open Society Policy Center

OpenTheGovernment.org

People For the American Way

Privacy Lives

Republican Liberty Caucus

The Multiracial Activist

United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society

U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation

That doesn't even count the bloggers who have joined forces.

[Dr.Phool]

14. I never thought that I would agree with Bob Barr on much of anything.

And I don't think that many people understand just what they're intercepting. They are literally listening in to every phone call that you make or is made to you. If someone else mentions you in a conversation, whether it's true, false, innuendo, gossip, or a joke, they've got it. If a former spouse or friend is badmouthing you, they've got it. The busybody fundie down the street is now a secret agent.

Every e-mail you send, or have sent to you, or you are mentioned in, the government has it. Join an online chat or this post on DU, they know your usernames and passwords. They know it's you. Every web site you visit, or every ad you click on, goes to a profile of you.

Every credit card transacion, your medical records including prescription drugs, your online banking goes to the NSA, and by extension, the FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS, and George W. Bush's nightime reading and entertainment.

I recall years ago (fittingly, in 1984, if I remember right) reading James Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace". Even back the, before Google, the NSA was so good that their computers were set up with keywords, that if they were spoken in a phone conversation, a transcript of the conversation was spit out on a printer. He said that back then they always stayed at least 5 years ahead of the state of the art in computer technology. God only knows what their capabilities are now. But, they've probably got him wiretapped by now too.

Thank you so much, Nancy Pelosi, Hairy Reed, Stinky Hoyer. If I believed in such a place, you should be damned to hell.

[northernlights]

15. inundate them

The best response to a 1984 scenario is to give them what they want...in spades.

They want to watch every move. Then everybody give them plenty to watch. Lace every phone, email, IM, whatever with keywords. Have plenty of conversations, too.

What the eff are they going to do if, say, a hundred million or so amerikan serfs are triggering their effing keywords all day and night long, in every single conversation, business, personal or just to overload their system?

Bury them in their own paperwork. It can be done. Just like when viruses shut down business systems by overloading them with junk.

Seriously, what could their keywords be? Talk about tearism. Talk about 9/11. Talk about torture. Talk about uprooting the shrubs in your back yard, talk about McUnable. Talk about the joys of insurrection.

Nixon's hit list will look like chickenshit. When 50% or better of the country is on their watch list, what the eff can they possibly do?

Likewise, the congress is complicit in trying to force every domestic animal wear a trackable id tag. They're starting with "livestock," but the long term goal will be every pet as well. And require that owners report every time said animal leaves your property. Backyard horseowners are thinking we'll just take our horses for a walk off the boundaries at least once/day. Bury them in paperwork.

Whoever the eff they are who is back there watching. Disgusting voyeurism, if ya ask me.

[balantz]

47. I imagine they could automatically cull certain key links.

It would be a way to weed out the more "dangerous" of dissenters. There are certain things which would be considered damaging that not all of the "50%" of Americans are looking at and talking about. Just talking about tearism for example isn't the same as working on enlightening others on the most heinous and damaging coverups of the biggest lawbreakers. A much smaller percentage who are getting dangerously close to uncovering them in a big way could be dealt with post haste without any court defense getting in the way. I'm sure there are plenty of "Gitmos" on American soil.

[tomp]

18. but...but...obama would NEVER use that power against us, would he.....

...we're ok as long as the "good guys" are in power, right?

[Maineman]

19. It is not just most Repubs that need to go.

Lots of incumbant Dems need to go also.

[PleaseSayItAintSo]

22. Yup.

LOTS and lots of them.

[Occam Bandage]

21. Nigh-insane hyperbole.

[midnight]

24. The kind we cannot afford to live with any longer.

[madfloridian]

31. Mine or Congress?

.

[Occam Bandage]

33. His. I think we can live without inaccurate Nazi invocations.

Immunity from civil suits for telecom companies that complied with extralegal government requests for information is not exactly the same as genocide.

[bertman]

37. Not the same as genocide. Correct. But, it is the same as Nazism

if you compare our government operatives with the Gestapo in that they have the same powers of spying and "disappearing" state "enemies" as the Gestapo had. It is the same as Nazism if you allow the hiring of BlackWater "contractors" to be the private army of the President. It is the same as using the military to work with state and local police to monitor "dissenters" and activists and to train for civil insurrection in defiance of the posse comitatus act that was neutered by the Patriot Act that our Democratic legislators went along with as collaborators.

Nitpick this to death if you want. It's fascism and it ain't creepin' anymore.


We're already in a very perilous position. And somehow Bush has coerced or co-opted the Democratic leadership to do his bidding on the FISA/telecom immunity bill. Including Obama.

Very scary shit.


But do you hear a word about any of this on the so-called mainstream media? Hell no. Because it's the same as Goebbels' Nazi propaganda arm.

How about some more Nazi invocations?

The Nazis DID NOT START OUT WITH GENOCIDE. They started out coercing the opposition to abandon all resistance and they brainwashed the German people with state propaganda. Then they stepped up gradually to genocide.

Does any of this sound familiar?

[Occam Bandage]

41. No, it is not.

Nazis ate sausages. I ate sausages. Therefore, I am a Nazi.

[madfloridian]

38. Where did you see him use the word "genocide"? I don't see it there.

And I certainly did not use it.

[Occam Bandage]

40. The Nuremberg trials were not about civil immunity for teleco companies.

[madfloridian]

42. I know what they were about.

Perhaps he used it because we should not go down this road at all.

[Occam Bandage]

43. And he claimed that civil immunity for telecoms was an endorsement of the Nuremberg defense.

I dunno, I think that equating civil suits with genocide is a bit much.

[katandmoon]

25. THIS IS WHY OBAMA IS ON MY SHIT LIST

And why I cannot BELIEVE he is getting a pass from so many for caving on the FISA bill.
Why isn't the same standard being applied to Obama that is being applied to Pelosi/Reid? It's assumed (with good reason) that by colluding with BushCo on this, Pelosi and Reid are looking out for their own interests, not the country's.
So -- why isn't the question being asked -- what's in it for OBAMA? Because standing up against, voting against, the FISA bill is absofuckinglutely NOT going to make Obama lose the election to McCain. If that's all it takes, then Obama had no chance to begin with and I doubt his many admirers would agree to that.

Ask yourselves what OBAMA is hiding, and then ask yourselves why you aren't demanding the same answer from him than from the so-called Dem leadership WHOSE CORRUPTNESS OBAMA IS ENABLING.

[defendandprotect]

26. DLC has told Democrats that you win by moving to the "right" ... that's the cool aid ---

[natrat]

36. lots of respect lost here, sad

[Jakes Progress]

29. The bill will eliminate whistle blowers.

No one in any company can believe that their home phones, cell phones, and even conversations aren't being monitored now. Plus, now then it will be a crime to say when the government is spying on a private citizen or group because, after the new FISA vote, it is not illegal but a matter of national defense. So I guess ratting out your company for breaking the rules will be an act of treason.

I see the posts of those who think this is just a lot of overblown imaginations. They lack imagination. They have lived under the spell of perceived privacy and rights. If this passes, people will gather in dark places to exchange ideas and wonder how there grandparents who called them selves progressives could have possibly let this happen. We are opening a Pandora's box. This bill is the stick that will prop it open so that we cannot shut it again.

Those who pooh-pooh our concerns about how important this is are like those who keep telling us that Global Warming and Climate Change are no big deal, that we have time to fix them. They just don't want to be bothered right now. Ignorance is only bliss for a while; it eventually will bite you in the ass.

[natrat]

35. exactly -i don't understand how people don't see the danger of this, incredible

[rodeodance]

46. neither do I. simply shameful.

[Jakes Progress]

49. But oh do they love

telling us that we are the danger.

[Joe Bacon]

30. Steeney the Weeny and Nincompoop Nancy must go.

Both of them should be booted out. Tired of wimpy leaders with NO backbone!

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

32. NSA

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/nsa/

[fascisthunter]

34. Ya... moving to the "Right" is Sooo Beneficial" to the ELite

isn't it?

[balantz]

39. Mr. Klein is a true patriotic hero.

What he is telling us is what has me so pissed off and so frightened!

We are experiencing a downfall into a fascist state and there is nobody on whom we can depend to defend us save a few true patriots.

We are being tossed like the trash by our own party.

There is no longer a true Democratic party.

We are witnessing the end of our Democracy.

[madfloridian]

44. From 2006 in case you missed it...

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70619

"AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works"

[Divine Discontent]

45. shitty complicit Repub & Democratic senators who are backing this

are agreeing with Nixon, that if the president does it, it's not illegal - DEFINITELY! What the hell is their problem? Well, it's pretty obvious they've been gotten to... apparently their dealings in whatever way, have been recorded and used against them, what else could one think???



New Obama/Anti-McSame Items!
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[Baby Snooks]

48. The real threat of AT&T...

The real threat of AT&T quite honestly is their billing. How many check their bills? The amounts often change from one month to the next. If you have a current and past due amount on your bill, often the current amount will be quite different the following month when it appears as a past due amount. Part of which you didn't pay because you paid what was stated as the current amount at the time. Sometimes it's only $5 or 10. Sometimes it's $50 or $100. And if you complain, well, you have the bill in your hand. They don't care. According to their records you owe a different amount. If you don't pay that, they cut you off. You can file a complaint. But you will need someone else's phone to call your public utility commission to find out how to file one. Electricity wasn't the only thing deregulated. Most public utility commissions have little power over telephone companies just as they have little power of utility companies. Thank you Congress!

When you think about it, if they don't care about your rights as a customer with regard to the law, then why would they care about your rights as a citizen with regard to the Constitution?

[Joe Chi Minh]

50. After many years, I've been re-reading Solzhenizin's book, The First Circle,

and was struck by the fact that Stalin had introduced his own verson of the Patriot Act. It was called, Article 58, and the people imprisoned under it, were known, at least among the prisoners of the gulag, as "fifty-eighters".

[paparush]

51. ENCRYPTION. Encrypt your email and use SKYPE for voice.

Maybe the NSA can crack the 256 bit encryption on Skype, but shit, lets at least keep them busy. The higher volume of encrypted traffic, the better. Lets crank up the level of NOIZ!!!

[Zhade]

52. Kick against the pro-authoritarian COWARDS here...

NT!

[madfloridian]

53. I just want to say this was posted before my decision tonight..

not to post about FISA anymore and not to criticize Democrats until after November.

[Runcible Spoon]

55. kick for this comment :)

:kick:

[L. Coyote]

54. ALL COMMUNICATIONS routed overseas to circumvent US law and the Constitution

Other whistleblowers who have not come forward publicly have provided further information:

-------
Deja DU: Are ALL COMMUNICATIONS routed overseas to circumvent US law and the Constitution?
Nov-09-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2245762

I was told years ago that ALL fiber optic communication traffic was routed overseas so that "everything" was moved outside the protections of the law and Constitution and ANYTHING could be monitored. I thought the idea quite fantastic even though it came from a very reliable source that would know exactly such things. Then, the story of the fiber optic splitters hit my radar. I now see now how easily exactly that, routing ALL COMMUNICATIONS overseas, was accomplished.

Is that Bush's and the Telecom's HUGE crime hidden and covered-up behind this story?

If the telecoms get immunity, will it aid in covering up Bush's crime.
ABSOLUTELY! That is why it is so important to the Rs! Support = obstruction of justice.

Have we arrived at the point in the history of the Bushco junta where
laws passed and people nominated are part of crimes of obstructing justice?

===================
AT&T Whistleblower: Telecom Immunity Is A Cover-Up
By Spencer Ackerman - Nov 7, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004662.php


Earlier today we flagged that Mark Klein, who uncovered a secret surveillance room run by the NSA while employed as a San Francisco-based technician for AT&T, is in Washington to lobby against granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies. In an interview this afternoon, Klein explained why he traveled all the way from San Francisco to lobby Senators about the issue: if the immunity provision passes, Americans may never know how extensive the surveillance program was -- or how deeply their privacy may have been invaded.

"The president has not presented this truthfully," said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. "He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There's no selection of anything, at all -- the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything."

What Klein unearthed -- you can read it here -- points to a nearly unbounded surveillance program. Its very location in San Francisco suggests that the program was "massively domestic" in its focus, he said. "If they really meant what they say about only wanting international stuff, you wouldn't want it in San Francisco or Atlanta. You'd want to be closer to the border where the lines come in from the ocean so you pick up international calls. You only do it in San Francisco if you want domestic stuff. The location of this stuff contradicts their story .....

=======================
NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee

NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee
Tom Corelis (Blog) - Nov 10, 2007
http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+Monitors+All+Web+Traffic+Says+ExATT+Employee/article9620.htm


Felt "forced to the connect the Big Brother Machine" if he wanted to keep his job

Mark Klein, the former AT&T technician and whistleblower who helped kick off the AT&T/NSA eavesdropping scandal, clarified further details regarding what he witnessed while connecting a secret NSA eavesdropping facility: secure room 641A in AT&T’s San Francisco switching center, presumably commissioned by the NSA, received copies of all the traffic its splitters were connected to, including both international and domestic e-mails, web traffic, and phone calls, both from AT&T’s customers as well as other providers.

Previous statements by the government, AT&T and President Bush indicated that the only affected communications are communications relevant to national security, like those of suspected terrorists and suspicious foreign nationals. According to Klein, however, the technology used to connect the secure room was far more democratic, consisting of simple, dumb splitters incapable of any kind of contextual filtering: essentially, room 641A received “a duplicate of every fiber-optic signal routed through facilities.”

Klein, appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann show, told viewers about his personal association with secure room 641A. “When I was a technician, I had the engineering/wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room … I had to know in order to do my job,” he said, “so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied; the entire datastream was copied into the secret room.”

Referring to the equipment itself, Klein states, “the splitter device has no selective capability, it just copies everything. .............

=======================
Interview: AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein on Bush's Illegal Surveillance and Retroactive Immunity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dJJhLueEg

=======================
NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOI1VGKcgGY

=======================
November 5th, 2007
AT&T Whistleblower to Urge Senate to Reject Blanket Immunity for Telecoms
Press Conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, November 7
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/05

Washington, D.C. - On Wednesday, November 7, at 10:30am, telecommunications technician and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein will speak out at a press conference on Capitol Hill, explaining why he is asking lawmakers to reject immunity for telecoms who assisted the Bush administration's spying on millions of Americans.

Klein witnessed first-hand the technology AT&T built to assist the government's domestic warrantless wiretapping program at AT&T's main switching facility in San Francisco. As part of his job at AT&T, Klein connected high-speed fiber optic cables to sophisticated equipment that intercepted communications from AT&T customers and then copied and routed every single one to a room controlled by the National Security Agency (NSA). Klein has provided evidence for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) class-action lawsuit against AT&T for its role in the illegal spying.

"My job required me to enable the physical connections between AT&T customers' Internet communications and the NSA's illegal, wholesale copying machine for domestic emails, Internet phone conversations, web surfing and all other Internet traffic. I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the National Security Agency to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history," said Klein.

Also speaking at the event Wednesday ...........

=======================
Judge Orders Telecommunications Companies to Preserve Evidence in Government Surveillance Cases
Ruling Advances EFF's Class-action Lawsuit Against AT&T
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/06


San Francisco - A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans.

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence.

The government and the carriers had opposed the preservation motion, claiming that the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege made it impossible to proceed with a preservation order. In litigation, parties are typically required to preserve all relevant evidence.

For the judge's order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/393%20order.pdf

For more on the class-action lawsuit against AT&T:
http://www.eff.org/cases/att

===== MORE ======
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