AT&T Says Spying Is Too Secret For Courts

The Wired blog 26B Stroke 6 reports on the arguments AT&T and the US government made to an appeals court hearing motions in the case the EFF brought against the phone giant for their presumed part in the government's program(s) to spy on Americans. In essence AT&T seems to have argued that the case against the telecom for allegedly helping the government spy on Americans is too secret for any court, despite the Administration's admission it did spy on Americans without warrants.

Comments

27B Stroke 6

[The Famous Brett Wat]

Get it right: the blog name is "27B Stroke 6" which is a beautiful reference to the out-of-control bureaucracy in Terry Gilliam's movie "Brazil".

Re:27B Stroke 6

[Tim C]

For those not in the know (as the wiki article doesn't seem to mention it), a "27B stroke 6" is a form that Harry Tuttle says he'd have to fill in before he could do anything to help, even if your apartment is on fire. (I forget the exact quote, but it's something like "I couldn't even give you a glass of water if your apartment was on fire without filling in a 27B/6 first")

Re:How's that for logic

[krlynch]

That's not what they're claiming at all. From their brief, starting bottom of page 1:

In light of [the Government's] invocation of the state secrets privilege, Plaintiffs will not
have access to the evidence necessary to establish standing, and, just as important,
AT&T will be prevented from tendering any evidence that would disprove it.
Firmly established precedent mandates that a case must be dismissed whenever it
becomes clear that the state secrets privilege will prevent a plaintiff from proving a
necessary element of his case or a defendant from defending itself fully on an
issue. In cases such as this one, where there is "no hope of a complete record and
adversarial development of the issue," the only proper result is to dismiss the
complaint.

where the quotes are from previous cases.

Contrary to the blog's claims, AT&T is NOT saying that national security prevents them from litigating ... they are saying that the Government's actions prevent both the plaintiffs AND themselves from litigating: the plaintiffs can't show they have standing without access to information AT&T doesn't have and hence can't produce, and AT&T can't obtain material is needs to defend itself. The Government, not AT&T, has claimed the state secret privilege. It's the same result perhaps, but for a very different set of reasons than the blog post claims. I'm not going to take a position on the state secrets privilege here, but a full debate on the issue needs to correctly state the facts.