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05.16.06
DoJ Files To Dismiss AT&T Spying Suit
 By
David A. Utter
The Department of Justice waited until the wee hours of early morning on May 13th to file a motion to dismiss a suit brought against AT&T over its monitoring of communications.
A class-action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T may soon come to an end, as DoJ made good on its statement of intent and submitted a motion to dismiss the case.
Like the spying EFF wants to reveal in detail, the filing by Justice took place when very few people were around to witness it.
The EFF noted how Justice submitted its 34-page motion early Saturday morning.
Under the "state secrets privilege," the government can request the dismissal of lawsuits where litigation and discovery of evidence could jeopardize its intelligence efforts.
In the filing, Justice said the case "would cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States."
Both John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, and Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency, provided declarations that accompanied the motion to dismiss under military and state secrets privilege.
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Numerous elements of the filing were redacted from the publicly released version of the filing.
Justice recounted the events of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent measures taken by the Bush Administration to protect the US from further terrorist actions.
It is likely the state secrets filing will end the case. Attention to the program became widespread after details about it were leaked to the media in December 2005.
Those stories and the subsequent coverage appear to be what will remain known about the program after the court considers the motion to dismiss the case ahead of its June 21 hearing date.
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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