This is where these people belong.
Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story – — Why are these privacy laws made in the first place? This should be a criminal action against AT&T executives, not a crummy civil suit. What is wrong with our system? This is total corruption to wink at these lawbreakers.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, sits quietly at the center of a high-profile legal storm hitting the nation’s largest telecommunications companies for allegedly helping the government spy on American citizens’ phone and internet communications without court approval.
In 2006, Klein stepped forward and handed sensitive AT&T documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that was preparing a class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications giant. That case and more than 50 similar suits have been consolidated into five master complaints that are now proceeding in a federal court in San Francisco. This summer, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear AT&T’s appeal of a key ruling that rejected the government’s national security concerns and allowed the suit to continue.
found by Mark McCullough
Has anyone ever found actual proof that the goverment tapped or recorded calls etc. of any non-suspect citizens?
I’m asking, because I honestly don’t know, not as a smart ass comment.
In many ways, I’m a little skeptic about sueing the telco’s(even though they are guilty of many other things) for doing the bidding of the Feds, when those same Feds hold the keys to the kingdom for those companies.
IT wont matter.,,
IF they LOOSE, we LOOSE, as the costs will STILL go up to cover the lawyers.
Also, #1…
WE ARE ALL suspect…of somehitng, until proven NOT guilty.
oddly, the digg freedom brigade isn’t madly submitting articles, printing tshirts or getting tattoos about this topic. maybe if the telcos were wiretapping hddvds?
Am I the only one that notices that in any normal world, when an illegal act is committed by a party, and another party benefits from said illegal act, then the second party is an accomplice in the act.
AT&T is getting just too big and powerful. They are using their monopolistic power to bully and drive competitors. You think it’s time to break them up? Oh wait we did that.
Are we really surprised? It’s not just lobbying and fund raisers that gets a company ahead, is it?
1. If someone was peeping into your window at night, even though it was potentially “harmless” would you feel your rights were violated?
What if I told you my employer was spying on me?
8. Then its in your lap. Personally, I will not work in an atmosphere of suspicion, but thats just my preference. I spend approx 1/3 of my life at my job, and I wouldnt do it under those conditions. I’m sure many people do though.
#7….Mark…..but thats different, thats an actual on the books crime. And can be proven in a court of law.
As long as there is no proof that the goverment or ATT or any of the other telco’s, went against the law that says they can only tap into specific types of calls, then what they did isn’t illegal.
As I read the original rulings that allowed the goverment to do wire tapping, they must focus only on a limited type of calls, by a limited type of caller. As long as the calls actually listened to fit that criteria, they are all legal.
From what I have read, I got the impression that the goverment used a specific software program that sorted through millions of calls placed and kicked out the ones that rang a bell with the program. At no time during the sifting did they listen in on or intercept any calls, or gather names or addresses of the millions of calls sifted.(if they did, then they violated the law, but that still dosen’t mean the telco’s violated any laws) It’s been a policy almost since telephones came into being that the company’s had to allow info to go to the law enforcement agencies if the court said so. Originally, there was a court order to cover these taps, or searches(a blanket order), only later was it discovered that the goverment didn’t obtain the court orders for the calls actually pulled until AFTER they had sifted for them. The telco’s didn’t know that. So if anyone is violating law, it could be the goverment, not the telco’s.