Fergie's Tech Blog

AT&T: Wired News Is a 'Scofflaw'

Ryan Singel writes on Wired News:

Wired News is a "scofflaw" full of "hot air" and should not be heard in a class-action lawsuit accusing AT&T of violating customers' privacy by cooperating with the National Security Agency in a warrantless internet wiretap operation, the telecommunications company said in a court filing Monday.

AT&T was responding to a May 23 petition from Wired News asking to intervene in the case in order to seek the unsealing of more than 140 pages of documents submitted as evidence.

On May 22, Wired News published 30 pages of documents acquired from an anonymous source who is not a party to the case. The papers include an affidavit from whistle-blower Mark Klein and eight pages of documents stamped "AT&T Proprietary." The AT&T pages are believed to be excerpts from some of the documents filed under seal in the case, and depict a detailed scheme for capturing and analyzing data flowing through AT&T's fiber-optic backbone. Klein's accompanying statement describes the setup as part of an NSA wiretap operation in AT&T's San Francisco switching center.

posted by Fergie @ 6/13/2006 07:14:00 PM