Fergie's Tech Blog

Judge Will Review Secret Spy Docs

Ryan Singel writes on 27B Stroke 6:

District Court Judge Vaughn Walker delivered what may be the death blow to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T today, ruling that he will look at the government's secret evidence supporting its motion to dismiss the anti-secret surveillance lawsuit since it might disclose national security secrets.

The EFF had argued that the judge could order AT&T to stop its alleged complicity in warrantless government surveillance based solely on government admissions and the sealed, but unclassified, evidence provided by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein.

The online civil liberties group also counseled Judge Walker to only look at the documents little by little and disclose what he could to the EFF, so they could counter the secret arguments backing the government’s assertion of a power known as the state secrets privilege.

posted by Fergie @ 6/07/2006 05:40:00 PM