WASHINGTON-A San Francisco-based privacy group claims in a new class-action suit that telecom giant AT&T Inc. violated the law by cooperating with the National Security Agency as part of a massive program to eavesdrop on and extract data from Americans’ communications.
“In the largest fishing expedition ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to data-mine the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be linked to suspicious activities, suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly,” the Electronic Freedom Foundation said. “But the government did not act-and is not acting-alone. The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program.”
AT&T declined to comment.
The Bush administration repeatedly defended the legality of the program, whereby NSA wiretaps certain wireless and wireline communications of U.S. citizens without obtaining court approval.
The electronic surveillance issue has mushroomed into a major controversy on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and Republicans raising questions about the program’s legality.
The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on wartime executive power and the NSA’s surveillance authority.
Meantime, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has notified Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to be ready to answer questions at the hearing about statements Gonzales made on wiretapping during his January 2005 confirmation hearings.
“Today I am asking the attorney general to explain his misleading testimony during his confirmation hearings when I asked him whether the president had the power to authorize warrant-less wiretaps in violation of the criminal law,” Feingold said. “After trying to dismiss my question as ‘hypothetical,’ he testified that ‘it’s not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.’ It now appears that the attorney general was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee, and he has some explaining to do.”
