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.

[zetec]

i realize this but the point is, you guys are upset about the wiretappings. at the time that they go get these retroactive warrants, the calls have already been listened to. nothing changes that. I understand there's no evidence admissible in court, but that's not what you guys are complaining about. You're complaining that the people were tapped in the first place, which doesn't change whether they get a retroactive warrant or not.

no, we're upset about the ILLEGAL wiretappings. There's already a secret court for them to go to to make this legal, there's absolutely no reason they should need to circumvent it unless they're having to cover other shady activities.

And jessica, aside from piracy online, which i'm somewhat more of an endorser of than straight out braggart about, what do i brag about doing illegal? Name me something.

Impala, quit trying to use the same fear-mongering tactics already employed by the current administration and try and propose a logical argument. "WE GOTTA SPY ON YOU BECAUSE THERE BOUT TO LAUNCH TEH BOMBZ!" is no kind of rational argument, just an attempt to instill fear and pass it off as an argument. Furthermore, as already stated, the 3000 were only, ONLY for the FBI, not Homeland Security and CERTAINLY not for the NSA. It's Homeland Security's job to monitor for terrorism. The NSA's actual job is more or less unknown, aside from domestic spying. As I've already stated, for all we know they are spying on political enemies, not suspected terrorists. If they were spying on terrorists, there's be little to no good reason not to announce the fact, as has already been done with HS. It gives them good public opinion, lets the terrorists know we're after them, and creates a general all-around fuzzy feeling in your loins. A secret German Stazi-esque secret police organization, however... well fuck, watch the history channel sometime and see how well those typically turn out.