AT&T Says Spying Is Too Secret For Courts 312
The Wired blog 26B Stroke 6 reports on the arguments AT&T and the US government made to an appeals court hearing motions in the case the EFF brought against the phone giant for their presumed part in the government's program(s) to spy on Americans. In essence AT&T seems to have argued that the case against the telecom for allegedly helping the government spy on Americans is too secret for any court, despite the Administration's admission it did spy on Americans without warrants.
Re:Take your pick (Score:3, Interesting)
Their not ignorant of that, just hypocritical. They still want to hold "rule of law" over our heads.
Seems to me it's about time that individual citizens start exempting themselves from laws they don't care to follow. Just declare that it's our constitutional right. There's precedent for that now.
If I ever get called to jury duty, I know I'll vote to acquit. Anything. The president doesn't follow the law, so what does it matter if a shoplifter does?
State Secrets vs Breaking the Law? (Score:3, Interesting)
a case for End-to-End telephone crypto (Score:3, Interesting)
We need a good end-to-end hardware crypto solution for voice traffic, 100% open-source and published and buildable on cheap commodity hardware. (I'm thinking PIC processors and FPGA's). We basically need a hardware-based telephone equivilent to PGP that everyone could afford, that doesn't require me to use a PC as a telephone. Phil Zimmerman's PGPhone is pretty cool and a step in the right direction. It just needs to shrink ;-)
The government should fear its population, its creator.
Re:Sssssh! (Score:2, Interesting)
Well then, considering they make Georgie Boy jump whenever they want, maybe they have it after all?
Come to think of it, maybe that's not such a bad idea: Get a few AQ guys some congressional seats. After a month, they'll be so deep in pork, lobbyists and high-class prostitutes that the last thing they'll want to do is blow stuff up.
Re:The darkest hour is just before the dawn (Score:5, Interesting)
And for those who are missing the connection to modern life in the USA, consider the plight of the migrant worker. Because they are illegal, they must hide. They frequently live five or six people to a room, more if it's a big room. Because they know they will be deported if they complain, they typically care for their own work-related injuries. By the same token, if they are unjustly fired, they have no recourse.
In other words, illegal immigrants are the new slaves. It's actually a better situation to just pay them because you don't have to take care of them, there's no investment to lose if they die or get sick. You don't even lose work, because you pick up a new one. And they typically work harder and are frequently better trained for the jobs to which we put them than the locals.
Enjoy your lunch today! The food it's made from was grown, effectively, with slave labor.
Those who forget history, etc etc.
Re:wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how many of them have actually lived under sharia law?
NOT AT&Ts fault! (Score:3, Interesting)
AT&T was wrong but then I thought about it for a while and actually realized what a
precarious position AT&T (and perhaps the entire telecom industry) is in. While I still
think that AT&T can be blamed for not having enough backbone to stand up to the
government, I think the reality is that this is the government's mess and the government's
fault.
Instead of blaming AT&T, I think we should lay the blame at the feet of the United
States Government. Traditionally we have been a government that allowed a lot of
freedom and bestowed a great deal of rights on our citizens and even on non-citizen
residents (even to some degree on illegal aliens which I personally find a little difficult to
accept).
The current administration will tell us times have changed. They will say that happened
on September 11th 2001. They say that they need additional powers to protect us from
terrorists and other enemies. They say that they need the ability to spy domestically so
that they can ferret out terrorist cells operating within the United States.
On the surface all of this sounds reasonable. Even congress agreed and passed bills like
The Patriot Act and permitted the creation of the Department of Homeland Security
(which for those of you who may be critical, I understand is a cabinet position under the
control of the Executive branch but the money still needs to be appropriated by
congress). As a nation we have spent untold billions on defense most of which has been
spent on a war that many question in Iraq. The government will argue that we have had
success, that there has not been a successful terrorist attack since 2001 so they must be
doing something right.
Good government does sometimes need to have secrets. Nobody is saying that our
government should be so open that they could not plan military actions in secret. Still, in
general good government does need some transparency and does need to be held
accountable for the things it has done. We can not accept an opaque government where
everything is done in secret or where we are mislead into providing support (like the Iraq
WMD mess).
Our current administration may not be opaque but they are getting so dark that it is hard
to see behind the veil that they have set up. Even when they are told "no" they just try
another end-run and try to accomplish the same thing in a different way.
I have no special knowledge of what happened between AT&T and the FBI or Homeland
Security (or whoever it was) but I would imagine that they were squeezed very tightly
and were put in a terribly uncomfortable position before they agreed to provide
surveillance assistance. Considering the current climate in the telecom industry, I would
not be surprised if they were also promised a few favors too.
We are supposed to be a nation by the people, of the people, and for the people. I take
this to mean that the government is obliged to do the will of the people. I don't think that
this means spying on us, invading our privacy, and taking our freedoms a bit and a piece
at a time.
I am so disgusted that I just want to puke.
Certainly AT&Ts fault! (Score:2, Interesting)
It is certainly the MOST common excuse in the world to say "But I had to do it!"