[privacy] The Secret Lobbying Campaign Your Phone Company Doesn't Want You to Kn ow About

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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Via Newsweek.

[snip]

The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with
the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress
to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them
for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance
programs.

The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying
and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears
that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the
lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.

If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate
their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community—or risk
potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over personal
information about their customers to the government without a judicial
warrant.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say the U.S. intelligence community is in
a near-panic about this,” said one communications industry lawyer
familiar with the debate who asked not to be publicly identified because of
the sensitivity surrounding the issue.

[snip]

More:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884696/site/newsweek/

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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