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

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: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.