Judge in Eavesdropping Case Denies AT&T Request to Close Courtroom
The judge in the electronic eavesdropping class action case against AT&T denied the company’s request to close the courtroom for Wed.’s hearing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the class action against AT&T for allegedly turning over customer telephone and Internet information to NSA. Wed.’s discussions featured evidence from a retired AT&T telecom technician and several internal documents that purportedly support EFF’s position.
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CNet Networks, Wired News and the Cal. First Amendment Coalition had sent a letter to U.S. Dist. Judge Vaughn Walker, San Francisco, saying the hearing should remain open because the “surveillance at the heart of the case presents issues of enormous public interest and importance.” On Tues., AT&T’s attorneys asked the judge to close the hearing “during any discussion of its trade secrets or confidential information.” Given the tremendous amount of public interest in this case, no part of the proceedings should be closed to the public,” said CNet Gen. Counsel Sharon Le Duy: “We believe it’s important to defend our First Amendment right to bear witness to these hearings.” A 2nd set of media outlets including the San Jose Mercury News also planned to send an attorney to the hearing.
Meanwhile, the FCC needs to open an investigation to determine whether phone companies broke the law by failing to safeguard consumer information, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said. EPIC said it filed a complaint with the FCC about reports, denied by phone companies, that telcos may have provided customer record information to the NSA.
“We expect the FCC to act. They understand that they have an obligation under the Communications Act to safeguard consumer information,” said EPIC Exec. Dir. Marc Rotenberg. He said EPIC wanted to draw attention to the issue a day in advance of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s confirmation hearing for Gen. Michael Hayden to be CIA Dir.
Privacy groups are concerned that the govt. is taking only minimal steps to address reports that electronic monitoring is taking place on a wide scale with little oversight. The ACLU said the White House’s decision to provide classified briefings on warrantless wiretapping and data-mining should be the “first step toward restoring meaningful checks and balances.”
Giving Congress the right to oversee the NSA in this area “is a belated sign that the Administration at least nominally acknowledges that our Constitution requires a system of checks and balances,” said ACLU Legislative Dir. Caroline Fredrickson: “It’s regrettable the Administration refused for 5 months to brief all members of the intelligence committees.” The Administration will give the classified briefings to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.