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.
Sssssh! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sssssh! (Score:5, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, they have. It is not about destroying a country, or individuals, it is a about destroying a lifestyle and beliefs (.i.e democracy) AFAIK they have won.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm... No it's not. It's about getting political power.
Re: (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: (Score:2, Funny)
But, pigs are unclean!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
And I swear, the captcha reads minds, mine is "defiant".
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
At least so say the conspiracy theoriests. On possible reason for not wanting a case to be heard by a court would be if the entire accusation were nothing but unsubstatiated conspiracy theory. (Judges tend to require prosecutors to present reasonable proof of their claims.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Need proof or it ain't true (Score:2, Troll)
Did you know that polls on people named Christopher showed that a disturbingly large percent of them use unsourced statistics to spread a message of intolerance?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Need proof or it ain't true (Score:4, Informative)
That is a BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE, and I fail to see how you can in good conscience leave that part out unless you really are trying to whip up hatred of Muslims.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OK. To put it mildly, you're really scared of Islam. Fair enough. Perhaps you or someone you care about is a member of a minority living somewhere under an
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Spirituality is neutral. Organized religion has always been more about power than a personal relationship with the divine. No one needs a priest to know God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it.
I am well aware of the more tolerant branches of Christianity. To be honest, religion is a positive force in most of the lives it touches. However, I think other
Re: (Score:2)
There are probably as many interpretations of "sharia" as there are Muslims studying it.
regard certain terrorists as noble figures
There are plenty of other groups of people who regard "terrorists" as noble figures.
wrong (Score:4, Informative)
The darkest hour is just before the dawn (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the west has gotten to lax, not enough people remember anymore what freedom and democracy are REALLY about. This will change, it has before and it will again. Dictatorship just don't work, it ain't the natural state of affairs.
BUT neither is freedom. The result is that you have a constant seesaw motion between the two extremes, the best you can hope for is that you happen to live during one of the quiet moments BUT you will only be able to do so thanks to the efforts of people who have come before.
The sad fact is the seventies generation has done shit for freedom, they shouted a lot but haven't actually acomplished a single thing. It was the WW2 generation that has formed what we like to think of as our free society. They had to, WW2 forced change. Equality of the sexes and races is a direct result of the allied efforts to turn the tide of war.
But whatever they achieved the natural state of affairs is to take back every hard won liberty for the practical day to day running of the world. Just as WW2 saw the injust internment of the japanese this war two has its miscarriages of justice.
but it ain't gone over the edge, the proof? We can still report on it, the story of this and other mistakes is getting out and is getting attention. If the dictators had won, you wouldn't even know about it until you were taken off the street and never heard from again.
As much as these stories may shock you they fact that they come out are proof that the system is still working.Not well, but then we get the system we voted for and Bush was re-elected.
Re:The darkest hour is just before the dawn (Score:5, Insightful)
What is interesting is that, in fact, dictators are only kept in power by the will of the people (or at least the lack of the will to get rid of them). Under Hitler, for instance, the majority of the German population were quite well off and ignored the fact that their wealth came from the belongings stolen from those in concentration camps and alot of the work was done by slave labour (ie those in the concentration camps).
It was only when Germany started loosing the war that Hitler decided to take his own life as he knew it was over and he wouldn't have the support of the people any more.
I was the same with Saddam Hussain. He was in power for so long because the majority were, in fact, ok. They had an excellent education system (the most liberal in the middle east (women were granted an equal education)) and electricity and hospitals.
I'm not condoning either of those rulers, but it is interesting that the main backbone democracy (ie the people choose those in power) is, in fact, the same reason that dictators stay in power.
p.s. don't confuse democracy and freedom.
Democracy is the process of choosing those in power.
Freedom is the ability to say what we want, however truthful, stupid, offensive, funny etc... as long as we don't incite violence or hatred (as in Voltaire's quote "I disagree with everything you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.").
Re: (Score:2)
Your thesis only makes sense if countries are totally isolated from one another, and access to the financial/military levers of power are equally available to all.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'd agree with most of your comments except for Chile. Pinochet actually WAS asked to stage the coup, and VOLUNTARILY stepped down when no longer needed. I know it's not a popular position, but if you talk with many Chileans in Chile (and for the record, I actually ran a company and lived in Chile for a few years) and look at the historical record, you'll find this is the truth. If only the news would carry it.
I'd ask that you read Robert Mos
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you so sure this matters? Even if you can still report about and protest, what difference does it make it if you can't affect government.
In fact, I would argue a dictatorship could use free press and other freedoms to bleed off dissent as long as the government machine is so comple
Re: (Score:2)
When you consider all of human civilization, most governments can be labeled as dictatorships. Ancient Egypt may have eventually failed, but it lasted for thousands of years while modern democracy has only existed for one quarter of one thousand.
Dictatorships are the most basic form of government and should be viewed as such. Essentially, the dictatorship is the natural state of affairs. Other forms can be seen as improvements upon that foundation meaning that an
Re: (Score:2)
History is against you. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's basically what was said back when the Roman Republic fell. The Roman Imperial rule lasted for about 400-500 years. Though there were brief thoughts and talk of returning to the Republic, it never happed.
Those who forget History are doomed to repeat it.
While you might argue that "We're different now", I would also point out that we're really not. We've been passing laws to strip away rights for decades, and the Supreme Court has been upholding them. Take, for example, the Japanese internment during WWII. Although there was lip service paid to how wrong it was much later, the Supreme Court upheld the decision. More importantly, Congress has never put in place new laws to prevent it from happening again.
You can expect this to take place in the future when we've had yet another panic attack. The laws are all set up for this. Only now it can be done in secret. Indeed, there are Prisons being built in the mid-west right now which have this as their optional charter.
I'd like to share your optimism. But I see nothing which supports it except some political lipservice.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But there's another factor that is making these see-saw swings more and more radical with each cycle, and each swings' peak, whether to the political left, or the political right, brings us closer and closer to a sustainable fascism. This has been happening since humans first became civilized, and with every cycle, we plunge deeper and deeper, and the damage becomes more and more permanent.
Orwell's
Reply:GFR ... BuSsssshit! NFC, Ain't Won Nothing (Score:2)
FYI: US, EU
I refer you and all political/religious dogmatist to "http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum" for a fe
Re: (Score:2)
> As a matter of fact, they have... [terrorism] is a about destroying a lifestyle and beliefs..
No it's not. As far as I can tell, the aims of terrorists are:
a) To change the foreign policy of their target state
b) To take revenge for the previous foreign policy actions of the target state
The whole 'they hate us because of our freedom / they want to destroy our way of life' red herring is just a way of dehumanising them, and an attempt to make their motives seem so ali
Why do you hate America? (Score:2)
How's that for logic (Score:5, Insightful)
But I guess logic like that is adequate for government work.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, last time this was tried, the judge did [google.com] go along with that.
Re:How's that for logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it does not exist there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How's that for logic (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what they're claiming at all. From their brief, starting bottom of page 1:
where the quotes are from previous cases.
Contrary to the blog's claims, AT&T is NOT saying that national security prevents them from litigating ... they are saying that the Government's actions prevent both the plaintiffs AND themselves from litigating: the plaintiffs can't show they have standing without access to information AT&T doesn't have and hence can't produce, and AT&T can't obtain material is needs to defend itself. The Government, not AT&T, has claimed the state secret privilege. It's the same result perhaps, but for a very different set of reasons than the blog post claims. I'm not going to take a position on the state secrets privilege here, but a full debate on the issue needs to correctly state the facts.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Take your pick (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they both said it :p
Re:Take your pick (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Take your pick (Score:4, Informative)
* Benjamin Franklin, "Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor", November 11, 1755; as cited in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 6, p. 242, Leonard W. Labaree, ed. (1963)
Yup.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I have no desire to be killed when your leaky gas tap is left on after your home improvements. Buildings inspections are a societal must.
Guns and cars are regulated for different reasons - such as not harming those around you (that includes the societal fi
Re: (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
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing several lawyers, that would be the kind of statement that would keep you off any criminal jury. Wait! *scribbles down statement* Now what about civil cases, got anything for me there?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So every victim must suffer because of Bush? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. The President declares himself above the law. Government agencies routinely violate the constitution in the name of national security. Habeus Corpus is effectively suspended (just by saying "he's a terrorist"). AT&T won't resists testifying in spy cases because its info is too secret for courts. Our citizens and treasure are squandered in an unprovoked war of adventurism. And the thing that really gets your panties in a bunch is that some guy calls for a jury revolt? Think of the children!!!!1!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Political equality of citizens cannot exist outside a framework of laws superior to the will of any powerful individual or group. Otherwise power belongs to those who can sieze it and exercise it. In a system where "national security" is outside the rule of law, then "national security" is no longer the security of the people of the nation; it is merely the security of the state apparatus. In terms of cybernetics, law provies the feedback which ke
Re: (Score:2)
Actually without rule of law your nation is unlikely to be that secure in the first place.
All too often "national security" is code for "CYA for someone associated with government". Most of the time actual "national security" would require showing him or her for the fool that they are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Such exclusion should be restricted (Score:4, Insightful)
It's mind boggling how just about anything that the Federal Government Agencies don't want the public to see, hide behind this excuse and usually get their way..
The ability to call upon such protection should be regulated and restricted, but when's the last time Congress did anything positive for us citizens?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Too bad those tax cuts gave us national debt in the trillions, and thus the largest tax increase in history. It's just a matter of when it goes into effect.
Re: (Score:2)
No, that ability should be abolished entirely because it is fundamentally incompatible with a free society. I don't care it it's spying, military strategy, or even Roswell aliens, nothing the government does should be secret!
AT&T's argument: (Score:4, Funny)
"Spying is such a harsh word...
We like to call it passive call attendance.
Translation to Daily Speak : (Score:4, Funny)
27B Stroke 6 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:27B Stroke 6 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I've always thought "tubes" jokes would be a lot funnier if more people, including a certain senator from Alaska, had seen this movie.
without oversight or any possibility thereof, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Is anyone else terrified of their government?
More to the point, is anyone else confused about how their fellow citizens can be so stupid sometimes?
Re: (Score:2)
I hope that remains true. The sobering reality is that these two cherished boxes are gradually diminishing in their effectiveness with what's going on these days. These warrantless wiretaps and other infringements of Constitutional guarantees, unreliable electronic voting machines, and so forth are all conspiring to weaken the effectiveness of the soap and ballot boxes in your great country... Soon enough, only the ammo box will help, and God help us all if it ever comes to that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rock and a hard place (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Rock and a hard place (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It seems all too obvious that the judges just need to have their clearances increased to the level that does allow them to hear the case. If they're a FISA judge they'll already have some reasonable clearance so it shouldn't be 'impossible' like some would try to have us believe. And it also shouldn't take forever. If they
Re: (Score:2)
What about this woman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_(journ a list) [wikipedia.org] ?
Court: Help us prosecute this guy
Reporter: No
Court: Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
It looks like "contempt of court" isn't even a charge. If the judge says you did it, that's it -- you go to jail. No trial. How did this happen?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably this list of judges is kept with the list of people so dangerous they cannot be allowed near an aircraft, whilst being so innocent they can't be arrested...
learly the FISA judges aren
Re: (Score:2)
I think rather than prosecute, he should have said persecute.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's our problem how? Perhaps AT&T should have thought of that before it decided to aid and abet illegal spying!
If the whole company goes out of business and all the execs hang for treason, it'll be too good for them!
In that case (Score:2)
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.
Think simple - what's really needed? (Score:2)
I think the software requirements are:
1. Must be secure against both criminals and government officials,
2. Must be usable by any computer user - no understanding of crypto required
So does this mean (Score:2)
New Ringtone (Score:2)
http://downloads.wired.com/downloads/Audio15_03/Ca ll_NSA.mp3 [wired.com]
Too bad my phone doesn't like MP3 or AMR ringtones.
To protect democracy and freedom, sentence AT& (Score:2, Insightful)
If this case is really too secret for a court, it proves that the government is commiting illegal activities, which puts them on the same line with terrorists regarding being a threat to the society.
In a democracy, people always have the right to know wha
My Favorite Part (Score:2)
My favorite part is that AT&T's lawyers feel that the terms "harsh," "greater public good," and "ultimately the less harsh remedy" all need to be put in quotes, as though
Re: (Score:2)
Those things are in quotes because they are in fact quotes. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if I'm interpreting the footnotes correctly, but they appear to be a direct quotation as referenced in Footnote 2 of the AT&T brief: Kasza v. Browner, 133 F.3d 1159, 1166 (9th Cir. 1998).
James Madison quote might be apt (Score:2)
Truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, if you continue to do business with them *you* are a willing participant, and should grow some balls.
Now, Comcast and their ilk are pretty evil, but they aren't nearly as bad as AT&T. Neither are the other major telecoms, and most certainly the RBOCs.
If you _really_ want to make a difference in whatever small way you can, get off Slashdot, research an alternative phone company, ISP, or wireless company, and *switch*.
Don't buy service from Cingular.
Don't buy service from SBC/Ameritech/AT&T/whatever else the monster has eaten up.
Turn off your DSL and switch to cable. Turn off your long-distance service and get VOIP or an RBOC's POTS unlimited plan.
RBOCs are still out there; there just hurting for business. But many of these companies will guarantee that none of their records will go to the government (and in my area, TDS Metrocom is advertising this). There's still some leak over to AT&Ts systems, as they use AT&Ts local loops, but the more people that switch away from paying into AT&Ts pockets, the better.
This is particularly relevant for Cingular. If you have Cingular, you should wise up. Sprint's SERO plans are cheaper, T-mobile is somewhat cheaper, and has vastly better customer service, and Verizon's footprint is larger and more reliable. Not to mention the regional carriers, which beat up Cingular market-by-market.
There is no reason to do business with this devil of a company. While the government empowers them to do evil, the $$ they use for their transactions come from consumers, and you all need to wise up.
Face it, the Constitution is dead (Score:2)
"The government, which says it has inherent constitutional powers to wiretap in the time of war..."
The government is saying that being in a war overrides the fourth amendment. But America is an empire now, and is always in a state of war. That is especially so when it's not a "War on Germany" or a "War on North Vietnam" but a "War on Terror". "Terror" is a tactic, and will never be defeated. So the government has given us notice that the fourth amendment is a dead letter.
Liberals never complained
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I that it's understood that any actions taken on this information will be "extra-legal". As in whisked away to an undisclosed location for an undetermined length of time.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
*In this instance we ignore the fact that the President doesn't have ne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)