DOJ Still Looks To Have Suit Against Verizon Tossed

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.'"

self preservation

[wizardforce]

If verizon gets hammered by lawsuits over the illegal wiretapping it doesn't stop there, eventually there will be pressure put on the agencies that did this nonsense in the first place. I suppose that they figure by shielding Verizon it'll discourage any further suits and investigations into what the department was doing.

Pure B.S.

[PPH]

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.

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.

Wait, what?

[rewt66]

Did they just argue that they haven't admitted that they were doing it, but they can't talk about doing it because it would threaten national security? Um, hello? First, it's true that you're not supposed to be able to sue on a hypothetical situation. SCO aside, there's supposed to be a real issue before you can sue. But the government seems to be saying that they have to admit to the wiretapping before they can be sued for it. IANAL, but I don't believe that's how it works, not even for the federal government. Second, maybe "we can't talk about it" is precisely why they haven't admitted it? So, maybe, not admitting it doesn't mean a thing? I hope and expect that the judge can see right through this rubbish...

Locking everyone up would be good for security...

[Kazoo the Clown]

... a thought which should be enough to illustrate that the argument "would endanger national security" is pure nanny-state. "If you don't have anything to hide, what are you worried about?" Government by neo-facist paranoiacs, that's what. People are trying to kill them, sure, but their behaviour is that of cowards and bullies, the likes of which have been known to do a lot of damage.

Re:Hopefully judges wont buy that sort of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Worse: I expect them to argue that exposing the wrongdoing itself will degrade national security. The rationalization being that if nobody knows about an ongoing crime then there's no outrage. Since criminals were allowed to operate within the system, exposing that fact will undermine confidence in the system overall.

For example, it wasn't until evidence of prisoner abuse surfaced that that subject began to cause its own additional stress on national security.

The thinking is that if you could stop the leak, there would be no outrage and no outrage == no problem.

Independence of the Courts?

[SirGarlon]

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.