AT&T sued over alleged role in NSA surveillance program - Top Stories - MSNBC.com

AT&T sued over alleged role in NSA surveillance program - Top Stories - MSNBC.com

AT&T sued over alleged role in NSA surveillance program
By Catherine Dominguez
San Antonio Business Journal
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2006

A San Francisco-based digital civil-liberties group has filed a class-action lawsuit against San Antonio-based AT&T Inc. seeking to end the telecom giant's alleged participation in a domestic surveillance program being carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the litigation on behalf of three California residents that the EFF claims represent the millions of AT&T customers potentially affected by the eavesdropping program. The lawsuit alleges AT&T has and is continuing to collaborate with the NSA by providing the agency with access to the company's databases and disclosing the contents of its customers' communications without a court-issued warrant.

The lawsuit was filed on Jan. 31 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which is based in San Francisco.

Walt Sharp, spokesman with AT&T, declined to comment on the lawsuit, adding that the company typically does not comment on pending litigation.

Rebecca Jaschke, spokeswoman for the EFF, says AT&T has 30 days to file a response to the allegations with the court. As of press time, AT&T had not yet filed its response.

Jaschke says the EFF's main goal in filing the litigation is to stop the surveillance program, which was authorized by the president of the United States. The program is currently the subject of hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The EFF initiated the lawsuit, Jaschke explains, after contacting a majority of its 10,000 members to inform them of the organization's concerns about the program. She says Tash Hepting, Gregory Hicks and Erik Knutzen, all California residents, responded and are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. All three men use their telephone service and Internet service to conduct business overseas, she adds.

Although the allegations in the EFF litigation single out AT&T only, Jaschke says the organization is continuing to investigate the extent of the telecom industry's participation in the surveillance program. If it is learned that other telecom providers are involved, Jaschke says the EFF will file suit against them as well.

AT&T is one of the largest telecommunication providers in the world and the largest in the United States, with over 190,000 employees.

The EFF, established in 1990, is a nonprofit group whose board includes a number of academic and legal professionals. Its stated goal is to defend civil liberties in the digital age.
Data fishing

According to the lawsuit, in December of last year The New York Times revealed that the government had instituted a domestic surveillance program, allegedly authorized by President George W. Bush in late 2001. The program, the EFF's pleadings allege, intercepts and analyzes without the approval of a court the international communications of millions of Americans residing within U.S. borders.

EFF refers to the surveillance program in the litigation as the "largest 'fishing expedition' ever devised." The group further claims that the NSA used powerful computers to data-mine the contents of Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers and certain words. With that data, the NSA, which is part of the Department of Defense, attempted to identify people who might be linked to suspected terrorist activities, the EFF litigation claims.

"But the government did not act -- and is not acting -- alone," the EFF pleadings assert. "The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program."
Showdown

The NSA's domestic surveillance program has prompted a national debate over the limits of executive power.

President Bush claims that he has the legal authority to authorize such a program during a time of war. However, critics of the program contend the president has no such unchecked authority. They argue that any surveillance carried out on U.S. citizens must first be authorized by warrant through a special court that was set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The EFF alleges, according to its lawsuit, that AT&T opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and other government agencies, "intercepting and disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers."

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T gave the government unlimited access to its database of caller information. That database, called Daytona, the EFF pleadings allege, tracks telephone numbers on both ends of a call as well as the duration of the call made on a land line. Daytona is used by AT&T to manage its Hawkeye database of call-detail records and the Aurora database used to store Internet traffic data since 2003, the EFF lawsuit alleges.

By opening its networks and databases to surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges in its litigation that "AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and e-mail."

The EFF is seeking to have its lawsuit certified by the federal court as a class-action cause. If the EFF is successful, the court's rulings would then apply to all AT&T customers affected by the NSA program.

The EFF lawsuit also asks the court to order AT&T to cease participating in the surveillance program and also seeks monetary damages based on alleged violations of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

A court hearing date had not yet been set by the judge as of press time.

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