ACLU lawsuit against AT&T dismissed

Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 7:39 am | 1,399 views | trackback url

American Civil Liberties UnionIt looks like the lawsuit filed by the ACLU against AT&T was dismissed by the Federal judge yesterday.

Another notch in the belt of our current administration to violate the Constitution once again. Its ok, this is just a prelude to a massive, ongoing civil war within these borders. Not to worry, fair citizens, everything is proceeding as planned.

I found this comment interesting:

“Even if AT&T — or the government — is successful at having the suit dismissed, the onus will be on similarly situated corporations to develop safety mechanisms ensuring that they do not face the same type of scrutiny and potential lawsuits as AT&T is facing now,” said Sean P. Melvin of LaSalle University.

The official court opinion is pretty revealing on the matter.

From the Chicago Tribute article:

“First, the Terkel plaintiffs cannot establish whether AT&T has unlawfully disclosed their records in the past,” Kennelly wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.

..because the plaintiffs were denied access to the records, as required by law, under the guise of “state secrets”, an excuse used far too frequently lately.

“Second, the plaintiffs cannot establish whether AT&T is currently disclosing their records, which would tend to show that there is a real and immediate threat of repeated injury.”

Let me try to sum this up:

  1. We are not conducting such surveillance, nor have we done anything illegal.
  2. The reason we have not done anything illegal is because you cannot demonstrate that AT&T provided records to the government.
  3. Forcing the government to provide such evidence might alert the terrorists that this surveillance program, which does NOT exist, is watching them, making us less safe.
  4. Therefore, this case should be dismissed.

That about covers it. Any questions?

Last Modified: Saturday, March 5th, 2016 @ 21:42

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