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U.S. Government Moves To Dismiss EFF Case
iny0urbrain writes "The New York Times reports that the US government has asked a federal judge to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because 'of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed.' The statement concludes by saying: 'Finally, because the United States intends to assert the state secrets privilege and file a dispositive motion to dismiss this action, the United States requests that discovery proceedings be deferred until the government's submission has been considered and heard.' You can view the full text of the government's statement of interest (PDF) on the EFF's website." Sorry, hadn't had my coffee yet this morning, and double posted this one. Sadly, the first one is a mere two stories down. It's also still pouring into the submissions bin, so I'm not the only one not yet awake.
That's DOJ vs NSA, this is US Government vs EFF silly.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
... that 'ol Uncle Sam would do this? I'm not sure if this will be effective or not, since the whole operation (probably, I'm no expert) violates a whole lot of privacy laws. Even considering national security issues, it's a stretch.
didn't nixon claim that the watergate incidents must not be investigated because it was an issue of national security?
where is our deepthroat today, is no one left in government uncorrupted?
-- lol pwned
I think it's oddly coincidental that, even after everything that's happened, Bush's approval rating still is around...
...30%.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
What's the EFF's proposed solution to terrorism and other national security issues? I'm kind of curious to know, but I couldn't find their policy on this topic on their website.
Making a valid argument as to why a certain thing is wrong in no way requires having a working solution, those are 2 entirely different things.
Your way of reasoning is a well known way to avoid hearing about your own mistakes.
I've been wondering about 24, actually. It seems to me that so far it's been the kind of programme that the idiots who think things like illegal wiretaps and torture are appropriate and useful can cheer on. But in the last series/season/day, an innocent man was tortured, and the same thing happens in the series/season/day currently being shown. Furthermore, the distrust of the executive office is growing and growing - obviously.
I can think of three plausible possibilities for this:
Anyway, it seems to me like programmes like you describe are actually harmful. When the average right-winger hears about wiretaps and torture, he's thinking of race-against-the-clock, blaco-and-white, completely unlikely Hollywood scenarios, which is why he's in favour of them. I suspect if he hadn't seen such trumped-up entertainment, he might have a more realistic idea of where these might be used, and be less enthusiastic for them.
National security is more or less a prerequisite for going to war. Whether it's true or not is another thing.
Can an illegal act be a state secret in this country? Could, lets say hypothetically, a Congressman or a high ranking official oh, I don't know... kill a hobo. Not because the hobo was a threat to the state mind you, but just because he didn't like hobos. Could he then use the power of his position to make his bumping off of the hobo confidential and be immune from any prosecution on the act?
If the answer is yes then the Judge should dismiss immediately and there would be no accountability for their actions for anyone in the government well enough connected to get something declared a secret. It seems to me that if this were the case, Abramoff and company would have had their shenanagans declared a state secret and still be free. But maybe they just weren't well connected enough. Maybe Dick Cheney could kill a hobo, suck all his blood out of him and eat his heart in some strange ritual and have that information sealed so that he could be forever immune to prosecution.
If on the other hand an illegal act can not be declared a state secret, I think that for this motion to go forward you'd have to have a hearing on whether the wiretapping was legal in the first place. I would hope that this is the case because I want my government officials to be accountable for the things that they do.
Unfortunately I'm not a lawyer and you almost never seem cases like this where the Government's a defendant. It would seem to make sense that illegal actions could not be confidential but this area of the law does seem to be pretty vaguely defined so I wouldn't be surprised if it actually goes the other way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
By now it should be obvious that we can't expect the government to play by the rule of law. The best option is to get companies to stop cooperating, and I feel the best way to do that is to cancel your service with At&T, and show them in dollars how much it will hurt them to spy on their customers.
A few weeks ago I cancelled my at&t phone and dsl service. I'd previously been a happy & loyal customer for 7 years. I explained to the cancellation dept why I was ending my service. I spent twenty minutes arguing with the woman on the other line who refused to believe her company would do such things. So I gave her about 5 url's explaining what At&t had done, how several ex-employees had come forward, etc etc. An hour later she called me back after contacting her superiors and the companies legal dept to get their side of the story. They told her (I'm not kidding here), that AT&T was being sued by anti-privacy advocates because the company was refusing to divulge customer information.
Yes, thats right, the companies legal dept is telling the employees that they are being sued for being "too protective" of customer info.
Cancel your service. Tell them why. Make them know the cost is high when they conduct business in this manner.
I really would not object to what needs to be done to defend against a clear and present danger.
"The targets represent a clear and present danger to the security of the United States."
"The President said that?"
"His words."
"Fine. That makes it all legal. Not any less dangerous, but legal."
There should really be email links with stories like this. /.ing email servers with legitimate mail would probably raise some attention.
/. bug #926803 - Why I can post.