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[ insider_reports_insider ]EFF Has Evidence Of AT&T, NSA Spying
David Utter Staff Writer 2006-04-10  Insider Reports RSS Feed
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently bolstered its class-action suit against AT&T by submitting evidence that the telecom provided the National Security Agency with open access to Internet traffic it handled.
Internal documents obtained by the EFF form the core of its request for a preliminary injunction against AT&T and its alleged violation of federal laws. Presently those documents reside under a temporary seal, and AT&T must submit to the court its contention that the documents remain under seal and away from the public eye. "In an abundance of caution, we are providing AT&T with an opportunity to explain itself before this material goes on the public docket, but we believe that justice will ultimately require full disclosure," EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said. The EFF provided a summary of its allegations, dating back to January 31st when it first files suit against AT&T: The lawsuit alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.
The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws. "The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now." Lawyers for AT&T had asked for the return of the documents, citing the inclusion of trade secrets and the danger to AT&T's network from malicious hackers should they fall into the wrong hands. EFF's Cohn replied that EFF would submit the documents to the court under seal and countered that AT&T's "blanket demand" request lacked specificity. Though the documents remain under seal, the statement released by the attorney for the whistleblower, a former AT&T employee named Mark Klein, was discussed in a Wired report. In the statement, Klein claimed that a NSA staffer interviewed an AT&T technician in 2002 in connection with a job installing equipment in a secret room at the company's switching facility in San Francisco. That equipment included a Narus STA 6400, which Klein said was "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets." Similar installations took place in other AT&T facilities on the West Coast. Traffic on AT&T's Worldnet as well as that routed from Internet peering links from other backbone providers traveled into the secret room; Klein claimed to have worked on connecting these circuits to a splitting cabinet, which delivered the traffic to the NSA'a secret room and its Narus data-mining hardware. AT&T customarily does not comment on litigation. The telecom has until Wednesday to tell the court if the documents submitted by the EFF should remain under seal. The Wired article also noted the Department of Justice could intervene in the case and request the documents remain under seal. And, the government potentially could quash the lawsuit outright, citing national security concerns under the executive power of "state secrets privilege." --- Tags: EFF, AT&T, NSA Add to | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | PreFound.com Get all the updates in RSS: 
View All Articles by David Utter About the Author: David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews. More insider_reports_insider Articles Insider Reports RSS Feed
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