More info on this EFF lawsuit
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.
The idea, as far as I can tell, is that the government surveillance is illegal, and AT&T coperated with illegal activity. Note that AT&T’s privacy policy specifically allows a provision for government requests:
AT&T will not sell, trade, or disclose to third parties any customer identifiable information derived from the registration for or use of an AT&T online service — including customer names and addresses — without the consent of the customer (except as required by subpoena, search warrant, or other legal process or in the case of imminent physical harm to the customer or others).
Of course, the implication is that the legal processes are in fact legal. If they aren’t, that seems like a breach of contract to me, and EFF might have a case. Unlike, for instance, the ACLU lawsuit against the NSA, this one is going for the family jewels.
The lawsuit request an injunction and damages under the statute. The laws provide that the victims can receive damages of at least $21,000 for each affected person.
As a member of a ‘hopeful society’, lets hope something comes of this, preferrably before November. As a citizen of America, however, I know that wont happen.
Ars technica: EFF sues AT&T to stop NSA spying
State secrets privilege, the use and abuse of which has been on the rise as government ineptitude becomes more visible in the information age, is based upon a legal precedent set in a 1953 case, and allows the executive branch to prevent the release of information on any “military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged…” With state secrets already having been invoked by the Bush administration for much smaller issues, it seems to me that the AT&T suit is ripe for some executive intervention.
I should also say that all the talk of AT&T’s databases is making my inner nerd giddy. The sheer volume of information involved is staggering.
From the Daytona page:
“The DaytonaTM data management system is used by AT&T to solve a wide spectrum of data management problems. For example, Daytona is managing over 312 terabytes of data in a 7×24 production data warehouse whose largest table contains over 743 billion rows as of Sept 2005. Indeed, for this database, Daytona is managing over 1.924 trillion rows; it could easily manage more but we ran out of data.”
Hmm I hope something is resolved that is for sure. All this talk about legality needs to come to a Constitutional head one way or the other, so we can have some truth. As a voting citizen of the US I’m hoping that it will be quite a bit before Novemeber. Don’t want any collateral damage to prevent the Reps from controlling, conquering if you will, the Congress in the ’06 elections. Though it is about time for the pendullum to swing the other way for another 40 years of wine and roses.