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EFF Case Against AT&T To Go Forward
Tyler Too writes "The NSA wiretap lawsuit filed by the EFF will apparently be moving forward. A federal judge has denied the government's request that the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T be dismissed. Among other things, the judge ruled that 'if the government has been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T's role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security.' The case will now move forward, pending a government appeal."
"if the government has been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T's role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security."
Sounds like the "terrorists" might've won.
But sounds good to me, but i'm a filthy liberal.
So yeah, if you have a few bucks, they could probably use it. I realize it's only our basic liberties, but let's be honest -- if you don't donate your spare cash to the EFF, you're just going to waste it on booze.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
"if the government has been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T's role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security."
Is that like "if you have nothing to hide, you won't object to surveillance"? Seriously, poor government!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I certainly look forward to seeing just how much the phone companies have been aiding the NSA. With the abuses leaked regarding the "terrorist surveillence program" related to international phone calls, the warrantless surveilance of American citizens certainly needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light of day.
AFAIK, the government has always gotten "national security" cases such as this thrown out of court, this change represents a very good historical first! The Right of Petition is still alive in the US!!!!
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist; They came for the Socialists, and I didn'
I expected the yes men to have buried this long ago.
Is the US justice system working? We'll have to wait and see...
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
It's nice to see the intended balance of power in our government begin to stabilize once more. When one or more sides start to get out of hand, the other side steps in! Sort of like rock-paper-scissors, but C-SPAN covers the matches. I eagerly await the incensed cries of "activist judges!"
A man once asked the Prophet, "What is a sin?" The Prophet Muhammed replied, "When something pricks your conscience, gi
As a consumer, I'm ready to look at these list of companies and effectively not do any business with them anymore. I certainly hope I can convince others close to me to do the same. Your dollar is stronger than your bitching to these companies, stick it to them.
It is nice to see the Judicial branch keep the Executive branch in check. What's even nicer is that the lower court will have the power to see if the Executive branch has been telling the truth without going to the supreme court. As a US citizen I am comforted by this news.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
A win for those who dislike governments breaking their own laws!
*does a little dance*
*realises that we still have a LONG way to go*
*frowns*
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
IANAL and didn't RTFA, but AFAICT the EFF stands for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
I don't understand how invading a country protects my freedom. Or how, terrorists threaten my freedom. They can blow shit up all they want, but I still have freedom of speech and religion. Or how by violating our civil rights, our Government protects our freedom. How is this true??
The only threat to my freedom has been my own Government. They are the ones (and unfortunately, the majority is letting them) who are trying to restrict the freedom of the press with their lawsuits over leaks. They are the ones who are violating citizens rights by spying on them.
This case is protecting our rights and fredoms that, let's see, were violated by our Government.
I'd rather live free and live with the vry remote possiblity of dying in a terrorist attach than having my Government take my rights away to protect my Freedom!
I've been voting and writing letters, but, unfortunately, the cowards run the show.
Since the Government isn't a defendent, and as the US has no meaningful concept of "contempt of court" or perjury, the court can't do anything about it if the Government is found guilty of lying. On the other hand, this is election year, which is not a good year to be found guilty of anything, even if there is nothing the courts can do.
My guess is that the Government will do anything and everything to stall proceedings, such that if there is a trial, there's absolutely no risk of anything embarassing being said before polling day. If they're in power, they can clean things up afterwards. If they're not, it's no longer their problem.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Federal judges sit until resignation, death, or impeachment and conviction by the Senate, for this very reason.
Hell yeah! At the very least this shows that the Bush administration can't arbitrarily say "national security" to cover up things that they've done that may not be entirely legal. With this, and the stuff about San Francisco and AT&T, its nice to know that AT&T might actually get in some trouble/lose some money because of what they've done. Maybe they should change their advertising slogan to Your World, Delivered...To The NSA.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
If you were pulling the strings, which would you want more?
A) The judge to quash the well publicised case, possibly causing an uproar.
B) The judge to allow the case. Drag the case out over a year or two. Make the EFF spend a shitload of money, and then have the defendant win.
Besides, the NSA are still sitting pretty. It's AT&T that's being sued, not them.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Is it so sad or what that it is in fact the two elected branches of government that are running the country into the ground while the other one with its appointments and life terms is the only thing standing in their way? I'm beginning to think people are really that stupid.
Unfortunately, we will never know whether (and how often) the NSA's programs did indeed prevent attacks like 09/11.
It puts is civilians in the impossible position of having to judge the need for, and effectiveness of, secret programs aimed at secretive enemies.
And the hell of it is, the president himself has to lie to us. Imagine that you are the prez, and you receive some touchy classified information that says somebody is getting ready to body-slam us. You've got to convince America that we've got to act pre-emptively... but, you can't say how you know, or what all the real reasons are. What the hell would you do?
You'd have to construct a completely false but good-sounding premise for an action which is, in fact, completely honorable and justified.
I'm no fan of the current administration, but I'm forced to allow them the possibility that they've been put in that exact situation.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Ironically, unhampered security groups do lead to invasions and killing of hundred of thousands of people. Personally I don't think that the NSA is even remotly comparable to the Gestopo, but what if in 20 years a power hungry psycho uses the massive amount of power we let the NSA have today to declare a defacto dictatorship?
If we make the Presidency so powerful and unhampered as well as its agencies then corrupt evil people desiring power will seek this position. We must keep the Presidents and security groups in check so that this never happens.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
True, however if you were to assume that the current political power balance was to continue then the judge could kiss any hopes of moving to the Supreme Court goodbye.
And since he was appointed by Reagan in 1985 to Federal District court, and George H.W. Bush to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1989, I'm going to guess that he's not a left-leaning judge (I couldn't determine for certain). He's currently Chief Justice for that court, and so the only place up at this point is the SCOTUS (or maybe a specialized court like FISA, but that's more of a sideways move at best).
So odds are that, yes, this could be considered a "career limiting" move. But that's like saying that Larry Ellison has pissed off Microsoft so much he's not going to become CEO there... there's really not much "up" left.
I was perusing the cable channels last night and came across a senate hearing on C-SPAN2
Kim Taipale, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies, was giving testimony to the US Senate about the NSA and the Global Communications network
He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that it was no longer feasible for the NSA to ensure that they didn't listen to the communications of american citizens without some sort of in-depth investigation to determine if the people they were listening to were in fact american citizens.
while it's not a dragnet, it is the mass listening on all global communications. Certain things trip the filters. like arab language. and using high value words such as bomb and al qaeda in the same conversation. this will undoubtedly trip the filters and some NSA analyst will have a chuckle over reading this post on slashdot. but before that happens, they will know who I am and where I live before they have that chuckle.
That's the part that I don't like. however, I hear that using words like viagra and cialis cause the filters to dump the data automatically. somehow I doubt that.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Basically, he's saying that, yes, there are state secrets, but the judiciary -- not the executive -- is responsible for determining how trials involving state secrets proceed. This idea of someone crying 'State Secrets!!!1!!1!one!11!!!' and automatically getting a case tossed out is relatively new, and, as most of us here believe, contrary to the basic premise of the court system.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
This is ND California, not court of appeals.
Maybe a carerr limiting move - depends on who gets elected in 2008!
There is already a faction in Congress trying to move the 9th District C of A (known to be a bunch of crazy motherf**er liberal hippies) to Boise or some other godforsaken place. Don't give them any ideas.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
A lot of people seem to be overlooking two basic facts:
e n-without-data-privacy/, or more generally from http://www.monashreport.com/category/public-policy -and-privacy/privacy/
- xml-technology/cogito/ But I think we need to radically upgrade our legal structures in response to these technological trends.
1. The amount of information government truly needs to gather to protect us is also sufficient to greatly threaten our liberty.
2. Governments will inevitably gather much more information than they really need.
As a result, it is necessary to design legal systems (and where possible to restrain the design of technical systems) so that even though government has the information, it doesn't commonly use it in nefarious ways. I've written a series of articles about that. Most of them can be found starting from the link http://www.monashreport.com/2006/06/06/freedom-ev
Examples of why we should expect government to gather huge amounts of information include, in no particular order:
A. All the call/e-mail/whatever connection information they're already getting, as documented in the news around NSA surveillance, AT&T's involvement, and so on.
B. Laws to require ISPs or information service providers to keep records of which IP addresses connect to which sites (so as to fight child porn, piracy, whatever).
C. Britain's moves towards complete video tracking of car movements (I get my reporting on this from The Register).
D. Credit card transaction records.
E. Forthcoming integrated electronic health records. (Those will have huge benefits to the saving of lives, quality of life, cost and efficiency of health care, etc. Whatever the privacy risks, they need to be managed so that health care is allowed to improve.)
And that's even without mentioning RFID.
What's slowing all this down is some political opposition, plus the huge technical difficulty of the required system integration projects. But in a small number of decades, it will all have happened. Our laws and oversight systems need to have evolved drastically by then. We have to start now.
I'm definitely not saying that we should cripple government in gathering and using information. Indeed, I'm an advisor to Cogito, a company with some of the most powerful relationship analysis software out there. http://www.dbms2.com/category/object-oriented-and
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
The summary is misleading because it
quotes the article in such a way as to
appear to be quoting the judge's opinion.
The word "scandal" does not appear in
the judge's opinion.
The article itself is clear on the quoting,
but Slashdot editors should know how few
people RTFA, and avoid giving them the
wrong impression.