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DOJ Still Looks To Have Suit Against Verizon Tossed
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Aug 30, 2007 02:38 PM
from the protecting-the-soldiers dept.
from the protecting-the-soldiers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell acknowledging that the 'private sector' had a hand in assisting the president's warrantless wiretapping initiative, the DOJ is ever more strenuously demanding that the suit against Verizon be dropped. 'The Justice Department attorneys argue McConnell's statements did nothing to change the fact that it hasn't ever confirmed any of the activities alleged by the class action plaintiffs--and has, in fact, denied the existence of any sort of "dragnet." The arguments made by the class action plaintiffs rest on nothing but "speculation," the attorneys wrote. In the Justice Department's view, litigating the case would still require exposing how the program actually does work--which, it says, would in turn endanger national security.'"
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An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that the US government has 'filed a motion on Saturday to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor U.S. communications.' More from the article: " In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker." You may recall a few weeks ago when the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the case. They've now taken the next step required to quash this legal action.
[+]
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op12 writes "CNET has an article describing how AT&T accidentally leaked sensitive information involving the NSA lawsuit. From the article: '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. But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple'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 room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.""
[+]
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Erris writes "The Bush administration is seeking even less judicial oversight for their spying efforts both here and abroad. An AP story is discussing proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act proposed by National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. 'The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.' One of their specific goals is prosecution immunity for communications companies who comply with the program, a sheild for groups that violate privacy laws in turning over information to the NSA. The article notes that 'Critics question whether the changes are needed and worry about what the Bush administration has in store, given a rash of allegations about domestic surveillance and abuse of power.'"
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Gone but not Gonzales (Score:5, Insightful)
They will hold our country hostage to get us to let them walk all over our people.
Re:Gone but not Gonzales (Score:4, Insightful)
If you thought you saw something over the last decade - with big telecom industries operating a revolving-door operation with the FCC regulators, just wait and see what "intelligence" has in store! There is profit in War - that's what the size of the "defense" budget represents: how much of your taxes will be funneled as a subsidy to Haliburton and General Dynamics. Now, AT&T and VeriZion are in on the act.
Parent
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
AT&T: Your world, delivered. To NSA.
Cingular: Lowering the bar.
> We're screwing you for your own good.
OK, fess up. Which telco are you working for?
Parent
Good subject for confirmation hearings (Score:5, Insightful)
This should come up in the confirmation hearings for the new Attorney General.
Re: (Score:2)
self preservation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Are you referring to the ideas of a certain ex-Senator, [wikipedia.org] or to "that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex?" [wikipedia.org]
The most dangerous thing in the world is ... (Score:2)
Like the little kid says on "the Awful Show": "Okay
I feel, uh, violated...
Hopefully judges wont buy that sort of shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would of thought that if that were the case that not all the hearings would be open to those without necessary clearance. Sounds like a bit of a cop out to me. Along the lines of "We've done stuff we shouldn't of done, but because it's in the interests of national security, we can't tell you what we did and how we will keep on doing it".
Can Someone post the "Easy Summary"? (Score:2)
I'm no fan of either player here. This reads like a triple negative. Who's the side we're supposed to be 'rooting for' and is this a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?
Congressional Hearings (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I usually can't stand the idea of Congressional hearings on anything (they end up being more campaign speech-y, than enlightened probes), but this might be an instance where I'm inclined to change my opinion. If there was any type of collusion between the government and big business to break the law of the land, quite a few corporate heads need to roll.
Note that I'm not advocating that these be public hearings - I'm willing to let the government keep a few of its secrets - but all testimony should be under oath. What I cannot abide is watching anybody lie to Congress [washingtonpost.com], and get away scot free. Especially corporations that have received substantial benefits (subsidies, market consolidation, etc.) from the very same people they are lying to.
Re:Congressional Hearings (Score:4, Insightful)
Well I would think that in the interest of having 'checks and balances', in practice rather than theory, that is what ought to happen. If Major corporations have wronged their customers and the DOJ has acted in an illegal manner it needs to be corrected, not brushed under the carpet because it's "in the interests of national security".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm wiling to make an even stronger statement: FUCK "national security!" If we, as a nation, have to make a choice between "national security" and checks and balances, then we're just damn well going to have to be "insecure!"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So all those acts must be made public to ensure that they actually do or would receive public approval. In hiding it's methods and it's actions, the current administration and it's political appointees know that t
Who is "it" (Score:2)
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in those suits recently submitted the McConnell transcript for the court record, in an attempt to blunt the government's contentions that proceeding with the case will endanger national security by exposing state secrets.
Not so, the Bush administration countered in a Wednesday court filing seen by CNET News.com. The Justice Department attorneys argue McConnell's statements did nothing to change the fact that **it** hasn't ever confirmed any of the activities alleged by the class action plaintiffs--and has, in fact, denied the existence of any sort of "dragnet."
Who is the **it** that TFA is talking about?
It could be:
The Justice Dept.
The Bush Administration
National Intelligence Program (McConnell, Director of)
From what I understand [wikipedia.org] Mike McConnel is a political appointee of the President and his words = the Administration's words.
In other words, if he admits to something, the Bush Administration has admitted to it too.
It was a confession of guilt (Score:3, Insightful)
"Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies,"
Which means they have merit. Moreover he said it publicly, so he can testify the same under oath without causing any additional problems for national security.
They should be thrown out. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right. You have your legal department determine if the EO would make your company violate the law (not hard, since that's the office to which EOs are submitted in the first place) and, if so, file with the court to have an injunction placed on the feds.
Ignoring an executive order is as bad as just bending over for it.
Pure B.S. (Score:3, Interesting)
Pure DoJ bullsh*t.
The safe bet is that the NSA is packet-sniffing all foreign and domestic communications involving targeted individuals or, in the event they can't narrow it down to an IP address, they monitor all the public WiFi services in the neighborhood. Anyone familiar with the technology can figure out how to do it. Anyone communicating with individuals abroad or any number of 'suspect' domestic groups (Islamic, Arab-American lobbying groups, etc.) can figure its being done to them. There's no big secret needing to be kept.
What would endanger 'security' is that this technology is also being used for domestic surveillance for political and even economic reasons (i.e. industrial espionage). The security it would endanger is the current administration's ability to remain out of prison.
Re:Pure B.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not a big secret understanding what they want. They want to monitor all communications in the US, and be flagged when the system finds things they are looking for. They have wanted this for a long time, even before this administration, and was the whole reason of the original Echelon Network design. Meaning, for the rest of the world they have been monitoring traffic for some time, but were prevented from doing so to its own US citizens. Now they want this power and think that they can justify it by using the 'terrorist' angle...
Parent
Wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Locking everyone up would be good for security... (Score:3, Interesting)
Independence of the Courts? (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to me for the executive branch to demand a lawsuit be dismissed is meddling in the independence of the judiciary and violating the Constitutional separation of powers.
Oh, wait, I forgot "activist judges" are supposed to be a bad thing. Never mind about that separation of powers rubbish, then.