CNET: AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit

[cal04]

Lawyers for AT&T accidentally released sensitive information while defending a lawsuit that accuses the company of facilitating a government wiretapping program, CNET News.com has learned. AT&T's attorneys this week filed a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages and render them unreadable (click here for PDF).

But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple Computer's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11. The deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action lawsuit in January, alleges that the room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.

"AT&T notes that the facts recited by plaintiffs are entirely consistent with any number of legitimate Internet monitoring systems, such as those used to detect viruses and stop hackers," the redacted pages say. Another section says: "Although the plaintiffs ominously refer to the equipment as the 'Surveillance Configuration,' the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The redacted portions of AT&T's court filing are not classified, and no information relating to actual operations of an NSA surveillance program was disclosed. Also, AT&T's attorneys at the law firms of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Sidley Austin were careful not to explicitly acknowledge that such a secret room actually exists. A representative for AT&T was not immediately available to comment.

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http://news.com.com/AT38T+leaks+sensitive+info+in+NSA+suit/2100-1028-6077353.html?part=dtx&tag=nl.e433

[heartofthesiskiyou]

1. See the un-redacted three pages

along with 27 more pages of diagrams, full equipment lists supplied by an anonymous source and posted at wired.com Follow the equipment; it speaks for itself

http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.pdf

My update is here
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At some unknown point the so called "catch 22" (you or court or investigators can see evidence cause it's secret)impasse will be overcome, either by the congress stepping up and dumping funding for the database collection activities, or the courts, or most importantly, the FISA court whose authority has been usurped. One of the justices has already resigned in protest the day after the USA Today article became public, and a number of the court including the Chief of that court are none too happy. There are some legal rumblings there that a resignation en-mass may occur should the NSA be unable to overcome the beliefs that if NSA doesn't think they (FISA) are needed anymore then the court should dissolve. This is the best-kept secret in the matter with almost NO coverage by MSM of the degree of hostility occurring a FISA. Legal scholars close to the case are holding some high hopes in this regard as should the court move forward with the threat of resignation, by the NSA not coming forward with some acceptable accommodation to the courts mandate the whole cookie will crumble when the congress has to deal with the resulting egg all over the collective faces of Congress.
spin

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1294329

spip
IN the related matter of the equipment, at least six major MSM outlets are and have begun to follow the equipment. The NYT has already received an initial feedback from the experts they have hired that the equipment demonstrates significant violations are occurring. Rumor has it that Congressional staffers have begun to collect opinions of expertise after receiving information from MSM and "internet" source's where the equipment is coming under scrutiny. Whether this will lead to any spine at the Congress anytime soon is too early to judge. Pressed for an opinion, the impending pressure that will most assuredly occur once MSM is ready to move forward with the exposure of what they are finding the equipment evaluation leads, will force the hand of the DINOs. While we have lost the first battle I would say the war itself is not over. The NSA has significantly weakened its hand in the pursuit of ABC and others in the press; those once held allies will amount to the veritable pit bull that won't let go of its prey.
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