ZoneFlood

Wired News:

A file detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T’s insistence, it remains under seal in court records.

AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we’ve seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public’s right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T’s claims to secrecy.

You can read the documents for yourself here.

A new Business Week article may help explain how AT&T and BellSouth can say they didn’t help the NSA, despite the spy agency having millions of their records showing the call details of Americans using their networks.

The magazine reveals a hidden corner of the telecommunications world: a small group of companies who specialize in granting the government access to telecommunications records, conversations and real-time data on behalf of the telecom giants.

That’s right: the government now makes so many requests for wiretaps, phone records and call information that an industry has sprung up to handle the load.

[TPMmuckraker | May 19, 2006]

An AT&T attorney indicated in federal court on Wednesday that the Bush administration provided legal authorization for the telecommunications company to open its network to the National Security Agency.

Federal law may “authorize and in some cases require telecommunications companies to furnish information” to the executive branch, said Bradford Berenson, who was associate White House counsel when President Bush authorized the NSA surveillance program in late 2001 and is now a partner at the Sidley Austin law firm in Washington, D.C.

Far from being complicit in an illegal spying scheme, Berenson said, “AT&T is essentially an innocent bystander.”

AT&T may be referring to an obscure section of federal law, 18 U.S.C. 2511, which permits a telecommunications company to provide “information” and “facilities” to the federal government as long as the attorney general authorizes it. The authorization must come in the form of “certification in writing by…the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law.”

Information that is not yet public “would be exculpatory and would show AT&T’s conduct in the best possible light,” Berenson said. But he did not acknowledge any details about the company’s alleged participation in the NSA’s surveillance program, which has ignited an ongoing debate on Capitol Hill and led to this class-action lawsuit being filed in January by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[CNET News.com | May 17, 2006]

From Tim Grieve at Salon.com:

Cruising through the White House Web site earlier this month, we noticed a rather cryptic Memorandum for the Director National Intelligence. In the memorandum, dated May 5, 2006, and posted a few days later, George W. Bush delegated to John Negroponte “the function of the president under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A)).”

We didn’t know what it meant, and — the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 not being our first choice for leisure reading — we didn’t take the time to find out. But Think Progress is connecting the dots this morning, and the picture that’s emerging is a pretty interesting one.

The Securities Exchange Act requires companies to “make and keep books, records, and accounts” which “accurately and fairly” reflect their transactions. But the Securities Exchange Act provision Bush cited in his memorandum waives that requirement for transactions involving national security in which a company has cooperated with the federal government after receiving a “directive” from a government official who has been authorized by the president to give one. In issuing his memorandum, Bush gave Negroponte the authority to issue such a directive.

What does that mean? It means that Negroponte now has the authority to free companies that cooperate with him from the obligation to record — and potentially reveal — the activities in which they’re engaged. And what does that mean? Negroponte now apparently has the power to allow the telephone companies that have been turning over telephone records to the NSA to keep their “transactions” — the payments they’re getting from the NSA — off of their books.

Secret documents that allegedly detail the surveillance of AT&T phone lines under the Bush administration’s domestic spying program can be used in a lawsuit against the telephone giant, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, but the records will remain sealed.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rejected a bid by AT&T Inc. to return the records that were given to the privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation by a former AT&T technician. But Walker said the records would remain under seal until it can be determined whether they reveal trade secrets.

[Associated Press | May 17, 2006]

BellSouth Corp. and AT&T Inc. were named in a $200 billion lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that telecommunications companies violated privacy rights by turning over customer phone records for use in a U.S. government call-tracking program to detect terrorist plots.

BellSouth and AT&T were added to the lawsuit seeking class-action status that was initially filed against Verizon Communications Inc. in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday.

[Reuters | May 16, 2006]

The EFF has initiated a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, “accusing 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.”

Here is John Negroponte’s response, which claims State Secrets.

 New York Times:

Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and assistant professor at George Washington University, said his reading of the relevant statutes put the phone companies at risk for at least $1,000 per person whose records they disclosed without a court order.

‘This is not a happy day for the general counsels’ of the phone companies, he said. ‘If you have a class action involving 10 million Americans, that’s 10 million times $1,000 — that’s 10 billion.’

Customers are hearing from AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon.

•  A customer’s conversation with a Verizon customer service rep.
• Verizon Media Relations e-mail message to concerned customers.
• An AMERICAblog reader hears from AT&T.
• More statements from the telcos.
• As we know, QWEST bowed out of the NSA program. Folks are congratulating them at ThankYouQuest.org.

We better hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Judiciary Committee, because he might be all that’s standing between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9-11, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth began providing the super secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the war on terror, President Bush says.

Why don’t you go find Osama Bin Laden and seal the country’s borders and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and he declared the government’s doing nothing wrong and all of this is just fine.

Is it? Is it legal?

Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens? Because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn’t have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation.

Read that sentence again.

A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it’s not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says okay and drops the whole thing.

We’re in some serious trouble here boys and girls.

[CNN/Jack Cafferty | May 11, 2006]