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EFF Sues AT&T for its Role in Illegal Wiretapping Program

6:50 am on February 1, 2006 | Category: Law, Telecom Services, Telephone

Civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has brought a lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged role in helping the US National Security Agency to illegally spy on the private communications of US citizens.

The class-action suit was filed at a US District Court in San Francisco yesterday, and seeks an immediate halt to the government surveillance program, in addition to several billion dollars in financial damages.

The EFF claims that the San Antonio-based telecom giant provided the government agency with direct access to its voice and data network, and massive database of telephone and internet records, without any kind of warrant. This allegedly made it possible for government authorities to track the communication of any user, without any proof of wrongdoing.

While the White House has vigorously defended the surveillance program, in the name of counter-terrorism efforts, the EFF calls it a “massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.”

“Our main goal is to stop this invasion of privacy, prevent it from occurring again and make sure AT&T and all the other carriers understand there are going to be legal and economic consequences when they fail to follow the law,” said EFF staff attorney Kevin Bankston.

Civil libertarians and all other freedom-loving citizens can only hope that this lawsuit will put an end to the US governmentâ€™s indiscriminate wiretapping program, and make telecommunications companies think twice in the future before violating the trust of their customers.

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