“At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer asked three appeals court judges to dismiss a class-action lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of an AT&T customer. The suit accused AT&T of violating the privacy rights of its customers by letting the NSA set up shop inside an AT&T switching station in San Francisco, monitoring customers’ e-mails and phone calls without a warrant … The DOJ sought the dismissal because, at trial, it could be revealed that the NSA worked with AT&T to wiretap Americans without a warrant, which is a state secret, if indeed such a program existed at all. The government can’t say, because that’s a state secret.”
Arggghhhhhh! See this InfoWorld article for a fuller account of the insanity that the DOJ, the White House, and AT&T are willing to exhibit. It would appear that maturity and ethics are rare commodities in those circles.
