EFF files surveillance lawsuit against NSA, Bush, Cheney - Computerworld_407

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The lawsuit, filed today, alleges that the NSA is conducting mass surveillance on U.S. residents, even as Bush and other officials say the program targets U.S. residents only when they communicate with overseas terrorism suspects. Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, the lawsuit is a class-action complaint on behalf of all residential customers of AT&T Inc.'s telephone and Internet services.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     



The Bush administration pitched the NSA program as being focused on foreign terrorism suspects during debate in the U.S. Congress earlier this year about approval for the program, Bankston said. The surveillance program had been operating since 2001 without court or congressional oversight until July, when Congress passed a bill giving limited oversight to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
                                                                                                                                                                                  
EFF files surveillance lawsuit against NSA, Bush, Cheney - Computerworld
The lawsuit alleges that the NSA installed equipment to conduct mass surveillance at AT&T telecommunications facilities in San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Los Angeles, San Diego,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, San Jose, and Bridgeton, Mo. "We allege a nationwide network of such NSA vacuum-cleaner surveillance facilities that would indiscriminately collect communications of all of the people who use AT&T's network," said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney at the EFF.
"Our case is about the interception of millions of ordinary Americans' communications," Bankston said. "If the government is proceeding under the purported authority of the [July legislation], then the administration has perpetrated an incredible fraud on both Congress and the American people in describing that law as limited to targeting people outside the United States."
Former AT&T technician Mark Klein, who leaked AT&T documents about the program in 2006, and various news reports have described a surveillance program that goes beyond the NSA intercepting a few phone calls or e-mails exchanged between U.S. residents and terrorism suspects, Bankston said.

"The plaintiffs are doing this ... to obtain personal accountability from the architects of the program and to provide a strong incentive against future lawbreaking by these or other government officials," Bankston said. "Our lawsuit today should sound a clear warning to future occupants of the White House, as well as future heads of the [Department of Justice] and the NSA: If you break the law and violate Americans' privacy, there will be consequences."
The lawsuit seeks a court order forcing the NSA to end the program and destroy any copies of U.S. residents' e-mail and phone calls that exist. The lawsuit also seeks unspecified monetary damages.

The White House and the NSA didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. Bush administration officials have long defended the program as essential for fighting terrorism.
IDG News Service - WASHINGTON -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other government officials, alleging that an NSA electronic surveillance program continues to illegally spy on U.S. residents.