April 12, 2006 | AT&T *69s EFF

AT&T has responded to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's move to have a judge stop the company from allegedly helping the NSA eavesdrop on its customers, and the telecom giant says it wants its secret documents back pronto.

In papers filed late Monday, AT&T argued that confidential technical documents provided by an ex-AT&T technician to the Electronic Frontier Foundation shouldn't be used as evidence in the case and should be returned.

The documents, which the EFF filed under a temporary seal last Wednesday, purportedly detail how AT&T diverts internet traffic to the National Security Agency via a secret room in San Francisco and allege that such rooms exist in other AT&T switching centers.

The EFF filed the class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California in January, seeking damages from AT&T on behalf of AT&T customers for alleged violation of state and federal laws.

Mark Klein, a former technician who worked for AT&T for 22 years, provided three technical documents, totaling 140 pages, to the EFF and to The New York Times, which first reported last December that the Bush administration was eavesdropping on citizens' phone calls without obtaining warrants.

Klein issued a detailed public statement last week, saying he came forward because he believes the government's extrajudicial spying extended beyond wiretapping of phone calls between Americans and a party with suspected ties to terrorists, and included wholesale monitoring of the nation's internet communications.

The rest of today's story is here. Earlier stories on the lawsuit (1 , 2,3)

Technorati Tags: narus, nsa, eff, at&t, mark klein

Posted by Ryan Singel at April 12, 2006 04:28 PM

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