Parallel cases dealing with the same issue are ongoing in the US
and last Friday a San Francisco judge gave a separate, similar case
the go ahead. But US District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled in a
Michigan court that this case would be dismissed.
"The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or
deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records
to the federal government could give adversaries of this country
valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities,"
said Kennelly.
AT&T is accused of passing on the phone records illegally to
the National Security Agency (NSA). Kennelly said that he had
received a written statement in the case from NSA director Lt
General Keith Alexander and from National Intelligence Director
John Negroponte.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) on behalf of several activists and author Studs Terkel who
said that their constitutional rights had been infringed by the
passing on of phone data.
The judge in the San Francisco case, which was brought by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, ruled that the case would not
endanger national security because allegations of information being
passed were so widely reported in the press. Kennelly said that
news reports were speculation and had not been confirmed by
security agencies or by AT&T.
"A private company – AT&T – should not be able to escape
accountability for violating a federal statute and the privacy of
their customers on the basis that a program widely discussed in
public is secret," said ACLU of Illinois legal director Harvey
Grossman. "Members of Congress publicly discussed the program of
gathering data from telephone companies without lawful
authorization in violation of existing federal law. "
"We believe that innocent Americans – including our clients in
this case – should have a venue through the courts for vindicating
their rights against the abuses and overreach of the executive
branch.
Kennelly said that some of the information provided by Alexander
and Negroponte was classified. He claimed that his decision was not
based on the classified information and that he would issue a
memorandum relating to the classified information which would also
be classified and "unavailable for inspection by the public".
US senator Arlen Specter has proposed a plan to hear any
challenges to the NSA's activities in a secret court under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
