Fergie's Tech Blog

Court Denies AT&T Privacy in NSA Hearings

Via Red Herring.

A federal judge rejected a move by AT&T to bar the public from Wednesday’s hearing into whether the company turned over customer calling records to U.S. spy agencies.

The telecom giant’s attorneys asked for a teleconference so they could argue that spectators and reporters should be locked out of Wednesday’s hearing of a class-action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The company wanted the discussion of critical evidence, including information and internal documents provided by Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, to be hidden from the public. Mr. Klein provided evidence to the EFF.

AT&T’s attorneys said some of the documents involve the company’s trade secrets and confidential and proprietary business information.

However, the court will be open when the hearing is called by Judge Vaughn Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

posted by Fergie @ 5/17/2006 10:13:00 AM