NSA Spying & Warrantless Wiretapping: EFF's Case Against AT&T

This page collects information for a general audience related to EFF's class action lawsuit against AT&T. For legal documents, visit our AT&T Class Action Legal Documents page.

Overview

Background

EFF is suing AT&T for it's participation in the Bush administration's massive and illegal warrantless wiretapping. The class action lawsuit, Hepting v. AT&T, arose from news reports in December 2005, which first revealed that the National Security Administration (NSA) was directed by the president to intercept Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications without any court oversight and in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution. Recent evidence indicates that the surveillance began well before September, 2001.

But the government did not act—and is not acting—alone. EFF’s case includes undisputed evidence provided by former AT&T engineer Mark Klein that shows AT&T installed a fiberoptic "splitter" at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco, which directed copies of many of its customers' phone and internet traffic to a secret room controlled by the NSA.

In short, EFF's lawsuit against AT&T seeks to hold the telecom giant accountable for its participation in illegal dragnet spying. By providing the NSA with unfettered access to their telecommunications infrastructure — all without warrants or legal order -- AT&T is guilty of violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as well as the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Where the Case Stands Now

Telecom Immunity: In June of 2008, at the insistence of President Bush, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). In addition to broadly expanding the president's spying powers, the bill essentially granted immunity to telecoms alleged to have participated in the warrantless wiretapping program — a clear attempt to shield the president's illegal spying program from examination in a court of law.

EFF believes the FAA is unconstitutional, and we are fighting back on multiple fronts. We are urging Congress to repeal the FAA in the next session, asking the courts to reject the immunity provisions as unconstitutional, and developing a new case against the government.

Press Contact

For press inquiries only, email press@eff.org or phone 415.436.9333 x125.

Media Highlights

"The Whistleblower Vs. The Spies": AT&T Whistleblower on MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann

November 7, 2007

"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," said Klein. "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet.

Video [offsite]

Washington Post: A Story of Surveillance

November 7, 2007

His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the National Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco.

"What the heck is the NSA doing here?" Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, said he asked himself.

A year or so later, he stumbled upon documents that, he said, nearly caused him to fall out of his chair. The documents, he said, show that the NSA gained access to massive amounts of e-mail and search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecommunications providers. AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network at a facility in San Francisco and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it.

Full Article [offsite]

Key Resources

From EFF

• Legal Documents related to EFF's case against AT&T.
• EFF NSA Graphics
• Archive of Documents Used by EFF to Lobby Against Telco Immunity in 2007, 2008
• Frequently Asked Questions about the case's legal and technical particulars.
• Evidence One-Pager [PDF] — Summarizing the technical evidence of AT&T's complicity.