21 ordspråk av Kevin Bankston
Kevin Bankston
As best we can tell, the NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans' calls and e-mails for suspicious patterns.
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AT&T aided the NSA in intercepting all or a substantial part of communications going over their network. We don't exactly know what the NSA is doing with that data.
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AT&T is breaking the law and invading the privacy of its customers.
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Based on the published reports and after a reasonable investigation, we think that discovery is going to show that AT&T has opened up its network to direct access by the NSA.
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But, it's at least wearing a grey hat.
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Certainly this would be an important case. The fact that they may appeal this one would be of great note and I think would be a victory (for privacy advocates). Based on so many decisions against them, the Justice Department is finally bowing to pressure and submitting its theory to appellate scrutiny.
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Having a third party know all of the news you read is troublesome enough. It gives away key details about your beliefs, your opinions and your interests.
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I think now they're just realizing the scales are tilting against them, and (appeals are) going to be unavoidable.
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I think we are going to definitely have a fight on state-secret issues. I would also point out that the state-secret privilege has never come up in a case where the rights of so many have been at issue.
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If state secrecy can prevent us from preserving the rights of millions upon millions of people, then there is a profound problem with the law.
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Our goal is to go after the people who are making the government's illegal surveillance possible. They could not do what they are doing without the help of companies like AT&T. We want to make it clear to AT&T that it is not in their legal or economic interests to violate the law whenever the president asks them to.
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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.
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The concern is that we are all carrying tracking devices around with us all day, so that every place we visit is logged.
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The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it.
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The key distinguishing factor between this and what has happened in the past is, it had always been retail surveillance -- the government targeted specific people and the telecom companies received warrants and allowed it. What we're alleging here is wholesale data surveillance.
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