Wired: Why We Printed It ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: May 23, 2006 10:33:41 AM EDT
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>, Dewayne Hendricks  
<dewayne () warpspeed com>, cyberia <CYBERIA-L () LISTSERV AOL COM>
Subject: Wired: Why We Printed It ...


Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 10:32 AM EDT
Why We Published the AT&T Docs





By Evan Hansen| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM May, 22, 2006

A file detailing aspects of AT&T's alleged participation in the National
Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a
San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at
AT&T's insistence, it remains under seal in court records.

The judge in the case has so far denied requests from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, or EFF, and several news organizations to unseal
the documents and make them public.

AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would
suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we've seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe
the public's right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T's
claims to secrecy.

As a result, we are publishing the complete text of a set of documents
from the EFF's primary witness in the case, former AT&T employee and
whistle-blower Mark Klein -- information obtained by investigative
reporter Ryan Singel through an anonymous source close to the
litigation. The documents, available on Wired News as of Monday, consist
of 30 pages, with an affidavit attributed to Klein, eight pages of AT&T
documents marked "proprietary," and several pages of news clippings and
other public information related to government-surveillance issues.

The AT&T documents appear to be excerpted from material that was later
filed in the lawsuit under seal. But we can't be entirely sure, because
the protective order prevents us from comparing the two sets of
documents.

This week, we are joining in efforts to bring this evidence to light in
its entirety.

We are filing a motion to intervene in the case in order to request that
the court unseal the evidence, joining other news and civil rights
organizations that have already done so, including the EFF, the San
Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News,
the Associated Press and Bloomberg.

Before publishing these documents we showed them to independent security
experts, who agreed they pose no significant danger to AT&T. For
example, they do not reveal information that hackers might use to easily
attack the company's systems.

The court's gag order is very specific in barring only the EFF, its
representatives and its technical experts from discussing and
disseminating this information. The court explicitly rejected AT&T's
motion to include Klein in the gag order and declined AT&T's request to
force the EFF to return the documents.

See Also
      * Court Deals AT&T a Setback
      * Stumbling Into a Spy Scandal
      * AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence
      * The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool
      * The Eternal Value of Privacy
      * AT&T Seeks to Hide Spy Docs
      * Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
      * AT&T Sued Over NSA Eavesdropping
      * A Pretty Good Way to Foil the NSA

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70947-0.html



--
My Original Writing blog - http://itgotworse.blogsource.com


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