AT&T Spying Case Today

Today EFF argues its important case against AT&T for its participation in the NSA wiretapping program before the Ninth Circuit:

As we all learned in school, Congress is also supposed to keep the Executive in line. But so far it has utterly failed to do its job; just two weeks ago, Congress surrendered to the President’s outrageous demands and passed horrible legislation authorizing warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international communications with virtually no oversight. Congress has also failed to engage in any serious investigation about the warrantless wiretapping to date. With your support, we’ll be reminding them of their duty in the coming weeks and hopefully will convince them to restore your rights.

We won’t just wait for Congress to come to its senses, though — Americans deserve their day in court right now. Backed by overwhelming evidence, including whistleblower testimony from a former AT&T employee, our lawsuit alleges an unprecedented program of dragnet domestic surveillance. AT&T has given the NSA unchecked backdoor access to its communications network and its record databases, violating the rights of its millions of customers. While we certainly oppose Congress’ recent dramatic expansion of spying powers, even the new law does not authorize such far-reaching, illegal, and unconstitutional dragnet surveillance, and it doesn’t change AT&T’s culpability for helping the government in its illegal activities over the last six years.

But Congress’ capitulation does make our case even more critical. All three branches of government have a duty to protect your rights. If the Administration succeeds in using “state secrets” claims to shut down our litigation after scaring Congress away, we may never be able to hold AT&T and the White House responsible for violating millions of Americans’ constitutional rights. And, more importantly, we may not be able to stop it.

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