Early January 2006: Retired AT&T Technician Joins Civil Liberties Group in Documenting Evidence of Government Surveillance Program

Retired AT&T technician Mark Klein (see July 7, 2009 and May 2004), angered by the Bush administration’s counterattack against government and media members who have helped to expose its warrantless wiretapping operation (see December 15-31, 2005) and having prepared evidence to prove his knowledge of AT&T’s complicity with the NSA in setting in motion that operation (see December 31, 2005), begins searching for a civil liberties group that might be interested in his work. He quickly determines that two organizations, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), might be his best choices. Reluctant to use the telephone for fear of surveillance, he visits the EPIC offices, where he gives a lawyer a copy of the CD containing his evidence, printouts, and a disk copy of his PGP privacy key for public dissemination. He will later say that the lawyer on site is “polite” but shows little interest. When two weeks go by without any contact from EPIC, he journeys to San Francisco to the EFF offices with his documentation in hand. The reception at EFF is far different from the polite disinterest evidenced at EPIC. Executive director Shari Steele escorts him to speak with senior attorneys Kevin Bankston and Lee Tien. The EFF staffers tell Klein that their organization is already preparing a lawsuit against AT&T for illegally providing its customers’ telephone records to the government (see January 31, 2006), and his evidence will be very useful in the suit. Klein later writes, “I felt a sense of relief, that I had found the right place: a group that wanted to take on this fight.” EFF’s initial lawsuit does not include Klein’s material, but the organization will use it in the court proceedings. [Klein, 2009, pp. 55-56]