Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Telco Immunity Case EFF, ACLU Challenge Dies Four Years Later Tuesday Oct 09 2012 15:45 EDT You'll recall that a few years ago it was leaked that the government and phone companies were working hand in hand on a warrantless domestic surveillance system that had little to no oversight, with AT&T employees revealing (pdf) all phone and data being dumped wholesale in the government's lap. When civil liberty groups became justifiably outraged that the phone companies and the government were breaking the law -- the government simply had the law changed, granting retroactive immunity to phone companies. A group of 33 cases against companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint were consolidated and last January made their way before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court ruled that the law giving the phone companies retroactive immunity was constitutional since it was done under claims of national security. In short, the ruling insisted that retroactively protecting companies against suits for breaking the law was ok -- because the government might need those companies' help breaking the law in the future. Today the Supreme Court put the last challenge to telco immunity to bed, refusing to hear a case brought against carriers on behalf of their customers in 2008 by the ACLU and EFF. The government originally tried to have the case crushed by claiming a case could reveal state secrets. When a Judge destroyed that attempt, the government simply decided to have the law changed, granting immunity to carriers provided they had received letters from the President saying breaking the law was ok. While this chapter of the fight for government and carrier accountability for breaking the law is dead, the Supreme Court is slated to hear another case next month that will determine whether it's illegal to sue NSA officials for sanctioning then-illegal wiretapping of United States civilians. |
n2jtx join:2001-01-13 Glen Head, NY
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n2jtx
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2012-Oct-9 2:45 pm
HuaweiAnd Congress is complaining about Huawei! We do the same thing and then pass laws to make it legal. | |
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