DOJ to drop bomb on EFF vs. AT&T Options

[pebkac]

http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/

The federal government intends to invoke the rarely used "State Secrets Privilege" -- the legal equivalent of a nuclear bomb -- in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T that alleges the telecom collaborated with the government's secret spying on American citizens.

Wow. Dubya's covering his own and his partners' asses.

[pebkac]

i just don't really get the point of "retroactive permission".  asking for permission to do something you've already done is pretty pointless imo.

and zetec... even if it is 3000, we're still talking about an infinitesimal percentage of the population... it doesn't bother me at all, especially when there's a possibility to save thousands of lives in a thwarted attack.  why does it bother you so much?

Well, it would prevent the FBI and NSA from wiretapping people without reason. If it's found that the wire was invalid, then it can't be used in court. Really, I don't see why the Bush admin would want to circumvent the court anyway. According to wikipedia:

It is also rare for FISA warrant requests to be turned down by the court. Through the end of 2004, 18,761 warrants were granted, while just five were rejected (many sources say four). Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004.

If they can't get authorization from a court that almost always grants wiretap authorizations, something has to be wrong.

Not to mention that there's no reason why they couldn't have gotten the authorization to do so at any time:

Due to the nature of the matters heard before it, FISC hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be "on call" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.