Gagged

Not only does AT&T not want to have to defend itself against civil suits regarding information it may have provided the NSA, it doesn’t want anyone to know about the case against it.

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit against the company, which alleges that AT&T illegally cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic-surveillance program.

In this recently surfaced statement, Klein details his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T office in San Francisco, and offers his interpretation of company documents that he believes support his case.

For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company. Here Wired News presents Klein’s statement in its entirety, along with select pages from the AT&T documents.

This is the suit that the DoJ has asked the courts to throw out for national security reasons. The DoJ request is only available in redacted form.

A judge has rejected AT&T’s request, but has also told the EFF not to release the documents, either.

On Wednesday, the judge rejected the EFF’s request that the documents provided to the organization by former AT&T technician Mark Klein be unsealed in court records, and ordered EFF not to share the papers with anyone.

“It appears that there is a possibility that the documents contain significant trade secrets or proprietary information belonging to AT&T,” said Walker.

But he rejected AT&T’s motion asking the court to order EFF to return the documents to the company, noting, “Plaintiffs say they got the documents innocently, therefore, their possession is in no way improper and in no way illegal.”

The judge also denied AT&T’s request to close the courtroom during the hearing on the above.

AT&T says it is being unfairly put between a rock and a hard place, being sued but unable to defend itself because of national security considerations.

In court, AT&T attorney Bradford Berenson cast his client as a hapless victim, unable to defend itself while maintaining its national security obligations.

“The problem here is not just that the plaintiffs can’t make their case, but that the defendants can’t defend themselves,” said Berenson, noting that some perfectly legal instruments of surveillance, like Patriot Act national security letters, come with binding secrecy requirements.

“AT&T is an innocent bystander, and the fight should be between private parties and the government that started these (surveillance) programs and ran them,” Berenson told the court.

(via BoingBoing)