Intellectual Property Law

EFF Appeals Dismissal of Warrantless Wiretapping Case

By cindy

EFF today filed its appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the dismissal of Jewel v. NSA, the case EFF brought against the U.S. government and government officials on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the National Security Agency's illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing mass surveillance of their communications and communications records. The case arises from the still growing stacks of evidence confirming the surveillance, including the technical documents presented by former AT&T employee Mark Klein that describe the NSA's secret mass wiretapping facility in San Francisco.

On January 21, 2010, the District Court dismissed the case based on the dangerous and incorrect theory that because so many people have been impacted by the widespread surveillance, no individual person has a "particularized injury." This ruling is not only wrong -- the NSA's interception of your private emails with your doctor, spouse or child is an individual harm to you regardless of whether it also happened to other people too -- but also extremely dangerous because it would have the courts blind themselves to massive violations of the law and the Constitution on the grounds that they impact too many people.

Despite disappointments from both the Obama Administration and now the Federal District Court, EFF will continue to fight to protect your privacy against the warrantless wiretapping in both the Jewel and the Hepting cases, each of which will next be argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on March 19, 2010 (boomark / email).