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Government Intervenes in Spying Suit Against AT&T

The federal government has moved to dismiss several AT&T customers' class-action suit challenging the company's alleged participation in a government spy agency's program to collect Americans' telephone records without a warrant because it claims the litigation will reveal national security secrets.

At least three suits have been filed since it came to light last December that the National Security Agency was tracking the telephone calls of Americans believed to be linked to terrorist activity overseas.

Most recently, author Studs Terkel and five other prominent Chicago residents filed a complaint in Illinois federal court, claiming AT&T violated their privacy by sharing their telephone records with the NSA. Terkel et al. v. AT&T Inc., No. 1:06-cv-02837, complaint filed (N.D. Ill. May 22, 2006).

According to this suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the telephone company has participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance effort by giving the government direct access to its facilities and databases and supplying it with detailed communications records about millions of AT&T customers.

The government responded recently with a motion for dismissal or summary judgment.

In its supporting brief, the United States says it was intervening in the California action to assert the military- and state-secrets privileges on behalf of federal intelligence agencies that include, among others, the NSA.

The disclosure of the information to which the privilege applies would cause "exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States," the brief says.

The government argues the case should be dismissed because, without the privileged information, the plaintiffs cannot make out a prima facie case to support their claims, and AT&T cannot provide a valid defense to the claims.

Another case filed against a communications company in connection with the call records database is Pascazi et al. v. Verizon Communications Inc. et al., No. 06-1221, complaint filed (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2006).

Michael S. Pascazi, a New York attorney, sued Verizon Communications Inc. for allegedly violating the privacy of its customers by helping the NSA spy on the Internet and telephone communications of U.S. citizens.

As in the California case, the plaintiff wants to represent millions of telecommunications customers to challenge the legality of the company's participation in the "secret and illegal" government program.

Pascazi alleges Verizon is violating customers' rights under the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution based on the government's failure to get judicial authorization for invading what he says is a reasonable expectation of privacy in their communications and the records of those communications.

Because Verizon has been acting as an instrument or agent of the government in the activities described in the complaint, the company must be held liable for invading the class members' privacy and for conducting unreasonable searches and seizures, the lawsuit says.

For their part, Verizon and AT&T have issued statements denying any improper conduct with respect to accusations that they turned over private domestic calling records to the NSA.

The denials were issued in the wake of a USA Today story revealing that the NSA has been secretly collecting the telephone call records of millions of U.S. citizens and creating a giant database for the purpose of analyzing calling patterns in order to ferret out terrorist activity.