Below is the contents of an email sent from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to its membership:
At a packed San Francisco hearing today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) defended your Fourth Amendment rights and urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to let our class-action lawsuit against AT&T go forward. The case demands that AT&T stop illegally assisting the National Security Agency to snoop on its customers' telephone and Internet communications.
There's much more at stake here than stopping the Bush Administration's illegal spying and holding the telco giant accountable, though. The President is arguing that thin claims of "state secrets" can trump the courts' constitutional duty to uphold the rule of law.
Without judicial review, there's no way to protect ordinary citizens against government abuses of power. No president, now or in the future, should be allowed unfettered authority to evade the courts and trample on your freedom. As Judge Vaughn Walker wrote in rejecting the government's claims at the lower court, "The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security."
For the past 17 years, EFF has been proud to take on the hard cases to ensure that your liberty is not sacrificed unnecessarily. Please support us in this critical case by donating to EFF at http://secure.eff.org/att .
And please spread the word to your friends and family.
Join EFF today! http://secure.eff.org/att
For a News.com story from the hearing:
http://news.com.com/Appeals+court+may+let+NSA+lawsuits+proceed/2100-1028_3-6202865.html
For more about the case: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att
Tell Congress to stop the illegal spying: http://action.eff.org/fisaLabels: advocacy, ATT, privacy, telecommunications
About the Author
Michael Taus is the Managing Director of Magnolia Ventures a technology incubator and venture business consultancy, and Aquo Interactive, a software development and Internet marketing firm . He has been involved in the growth and development of network-related technology companies since 1996, including Rent.com (acquired by eBay) and BigLinx, a proprietary search engine marketing service. He currently is an advisor to a number of early-stage technology companies.
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