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.

Comments

Woah.

[babbling]

How many cases against the government is the EFF running at the moment, and why is the government using the same "national security" excuse for all of them? On the other hand, I guess the "national security" excuse has worked pretty damn well in the past. It worked for billions of dollars spent on a war...

Comrads PLEASE!!!

[bazmail]

The security of the Motherland outweighs any and all privacy concerns.

--Brought to you by the Republican Proletariat.

Troll.

[babbling]

What a load of rubbish.

Either you're trolling, or you have great difficulty distinguishing between reality and entertainment. Just because something is entertaining does not mean that it is something that is agreed with. These are two completely separate things.

How would you react to the fact that some people watch V for Vendetta, 24, 1984, and True Lies? Would your head explode?

whaa

[tehwebguy]

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?

Re:whaa

[grylnsmn]

There's a difference between a civil case (which is what the EFF case is) and a criminal investigation (which is what Watergate was). States Secrets Privilege applies mostly to civil cases, regardless of whether the government is a party to the case or not.

Re:whaa

[neoform]

Illegally spying on citizens isn't criminal?

the only reason this is a "civil" case, is cause the government is too corrupt to regulate it'self properly at this point.. it's left to the citizens to fight back, and unfortunetly, the only way is through "civil" law..

Re:Hipocrits

[MustardMan]

Man, you're totally right. All this time, I've been watching tv shows where they do stuff that I wouldn't do in real life... I'm such a hypocrite. I'm going to throw away my Office Space DVD, because setting your employer's building on fire is just WRONG, and I should never glorify such actions by supporting such an obviously evil work of fucking fiction. Thank you for opening my eyes.

Reminder from history

[HangingChad]

That the Nazi party in pre-war Germany...at their peak commanded something like 30% of the vote. Until they actually seized power they were an extremist fringe group largely dismissed by the electorate.

I think it's oddly coincidental that, even after everything that's happened, Bush's approval rating still is around...

...30%.

Re:Reminder from history

[PatrickThomson]

Not true. The nazi party actually legitimately aquired a majority in the Reichstag, before they burned it down and blamed it on the opposition in order to seize absolute power. He only won 37% of the votes cast (or thereabouts) but the opposing citizens were too divided in opinion.

Dupe-ing stories good for once

[TheNoxx]

Normally, I'd quickly join the collective groan upon seeing a story duped, but this is one of those rare cases where it actually comes in handy and adds one more voice trying to get the American public to PAY SOME FUCKING ATTENTION.

Now, if only the NY Times would dupe stories like this. :)

Re:The NSA program probably IS Constitutional

[Scrameustache]

broad powers in times of conflict and war

And he went ahead and declared war on an abstract concept! We've always been at war with Eurasia, you know.

As the targets of the program are terrorist or their affiliates, no reasonable person could argue

Open source supports terrorism.
Copyright infrigement funds terrorism.

And most importantly: You can't ask who they're really spying on.

For the last time, we are NOT AT WAR.... sigh.

[TheNoxx]

The "War on Terror" is just a catchphrase, and the actual war, meaning one government's army fighting against the army of an opposing government, on Iraq was over long ago. We have a very large amount of troops deployed for being outside of a war, but that's no different from our "policing action" in a few Asian countries. This is why Bush has tried very hard, and often succeeded, to fabricate a need and provision for special powers, such as creating the Homeland Security department and having them create that bullshit "color coded threat" system, and why the Patriot Act was originally passed: it was supposed to expire, but was then made permanent. The president no longer retains any special war privileges, and aside from the ones granted to him and his cronies through the Patriot Act (which I believe they aren't using this time because they'd validate the claim to an extent that might well warrant many other groups besides the EFF to join in the legal battle, as the court case as it stands has the feds speaking tripledoublespeak (from the filing in TFA):

"When allegations are made about purported classified government activities or relationships, regardless of whether those allegations are accurate, the existence or non-existence of the activity or relationship is potentially a state secret."

Also, there are very clear provisions for privacy in the Constitution, and I believe the Supreme Court already ruled on this at least once: your communications, in whatever form, are your property and you have the right to keep them private. This is why getting a wiretap is (well, was, and kinda still is, though apparently legal justice magically changes depending on which agency/department of the government you work for) so hard to obtain. This is why unauthorized wiretaps are inadmissable in court; the same rule applies to getting a warrant to search your email or whatever you use. The reason why so many people have the miconception that they don't have the right to privacy is because the rights of citizens were greatly eroded under Rehnquist, for if I recall correctly, the Rehnquist court is the reason why police can't search you when you're walking on the street but can search and open any belongings you have once you step inside a vehicle, amongst other and lesser known trespasses and limitations on personal liberties.

Oh, and lastly, FISA is completely constitutional, and very well cemented into the machinery of the federal government, as the FISA court has great authority and works a little too nicely with intelligence agencies (The infamous CARNIVORE was created at the order of the FISA court), so I don't know why Bush exhibited such baffling stupidity by giving an Executive Order to the NSA for the wiretapping (which does break the law, and the only reason there hasn't been an inquiry is because the Republican controlled House and Senate refuse to even consider any sort of legal action) instead of asking the FISA court to issue an order for the wiretapping to the NSA, which probably wouldn've been completely legal... Perhaps because even the oft-bold FISA court isn't that stupid and brazen to so openly violate the Constitution.

Question:

[Greyfox]

And this is a serious question, I really don't know the answer to this and no one seems to be addressing or asking it.

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.