White House Demands Spy Lawsuit be Dismissed

San Francisco, Calif. (KCBS)  -- A federal judge in San Francisco heard oral arguments Friday on the U.S. government's motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against AT&T.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of several AT&T customers, challenges the Bush Administration's electronic, domestic spying program and could test the reach of the president's office.

The Administration argues that the courts can not decide the constitutionality of the president's asserted wartime powers to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants.

The EFF told KCBS' Bob Melrose that the government's claim that this is state secret is bogus. "we established that there's no legal basis, whatsoever, for the United States government to try to take this evidence - which is already in the record - and try and reclaim it as a state secret."

AT&T said it complied with the law and the EFF needs to focus on the White House, "AT&T cannot be sued and the real issue is with the government."

The San Francisco-based EFF filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T in January of 2006, accusing the telecommunications giant of illegally cooperating with the National Security Agency to make communications on the company's networks available to the agency without warrants.

The government contends that even if the NSA program is illegal, the lawsuit should not go forward because it might expose state secrets in the war on terror.

The case was put into motion in December of 2005, when the media revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that didn't adhere to safeguards set forth by Congress.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In a statement, the EFF stated "in the largest 'fishing expedition' ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to 'data-mine' the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and e-mailing whom in order to identify persons who may be 'linked' to 'suspicious activities,' suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

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