The United States filed today a "Statement of Interest" in EFF's class-action lawsuit against AT&T, which accuses the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.
The statement advises "the Court that the United States intends to assert the military and state secrets privilege in this action. In addition, the United States will also move to intervene and to seek dismissal of this case."
This is never good.
Reading that brief is so depressing. They're like "yes, we recognize this talk about the fourth amendment, but STATE SECRETS".
I wonder how this can end? When this case is thrown out, will they appeal? I guess they have to appeal until they reach a judge who thinks the constitution is more important? But even if it gets to the SCOTUS it'll likely just be tossed out.
consider oneself +friended, mainly because you seem interesting.
It gets better. Bush made up a whole new application of the SSA:
Interesting. Wikipedia has a lot more. It was passed after September 11th, just before Reagan-Bush administration documents were to become public.
But of course, as Bush keeps telling us, history will be the judge.
I'd like to be the first to say motherfucker.