June 23, 2006: Government Admits AT&T Lawsuit Documents Not Classified

In a follow-up hearing, Judge Vaughn Walker of the US District Court of Northern California hears arguments by AT&T and the Justice Department as to whether he should dismiss a lawsuit against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF—see January 31, 2006). The EFF argues that AT&T violated its customers’ privacy by colluding with the National Security Agency (NSA) in that agency’s allegedly illegal domestic wiretapping project. The government asserts that the lawsuit would jeopardize “state secrets” if permitted to go forward (see May 22, 2006). In today’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Peter Keisler admits to Walker that the documents presented on behalf of the EFF by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein (see December 15-31, 2005 and July 7, 2009) and others are not classified. “None of the documents they (EFF) have submitted… implicate any privileged [classified] matters,” Keisler tells Walker. The judge says, “Including the Klein documents.” Keisler agrees, saying: “We have not asserted any privilege over the information that is in the Klein and Marcus (see March 29, 2006) documents.… Mr. Klein and Marcus never had access to any of the relevant classified information here, and with all respect to them, through no fault or failure of their own, they don’t know anything.” Klein will later write that Keisler’s admission is a crippling blow to the government’s assertion that the EFF documentation would compromise national security if made public or submitted in open court. [Klein, 2009, pp. 77]