Washington, D.C. - The Bush administration is trying to convince a federal judge to allow a law that grants retroactive legal immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies, while the Electronic Frontier Foundation aims to proceed with a case that claims they violated constitutional rights by transferring private communications of Americans to the National Security Agency without warrants.
 
Nearly four dozen lawsuits have been filed by class action attorneys and civil liberties groups against AT&T, Sprint, MCI, Verizon, and other phone carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program shortly after the attacks that occurred on September 11th. The lawsuits claim that the cooperation by the service providers is unconstitutional and violates federal wiretapping laws.

In July, in conjunction with a larger domestic spying bill, Congress killed the lawsuits by granting retroactive amnesty to phone companies that aided the Bush administration in their surveillance efforts. President-elect Barack Obama was among the individuals who voted for this law in the Senate. In a hearing today, lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation will urge the federal judge who oversees those lawsuits to reject the immunity status.

If the immunity legislation were to be upheld, there could be an opportunity to extend immunity into other facets of the law. In the case of the telecom immunity, the government is arguing that the telecom companies shouldn’t be punished, or be threatened with punishment, for cooperating with surveillance program that the Bush administration claims was designed in an attempt to fight terrorism. The government also feels that the immunity is deserved, because lawsuits may expose government secrets, thus threatening national security.

The original spying lawsuit was brought by the EFF against AT&T in 2006. Since then, dozens more have joined in targeting U.S. telecommunication companies.

Recently, the EFF’s case has been consolidated with all of the others in the U.S. District Court of San Francisco and includes documents by a “whistle-blower”, a former technician at AT&T. The EFF claims that these documents describe a secret room located in an AT&T building in San Francisco that is wired to share raw Internet traffic with the NSA.

The Bush administration claimed in their court filing that the immunity legislation "represents the considered judgment of our nation's political branches that, in the unique historical circumstances following the 9/11 attacks, telecommunications companies should not bear the burden of defending against claims that those companies assisted the government in its efforts to detect and prevent further terrorist attacks."

The government also said that Congress “concluded that those companies should not face further litigation if they provided such assistance pursuant to a court order or a written certification, directive or request from a senior government official, or did not provide the alleged assistance."

The government can file a classified brief with a Court that could activate immunity for specific telecommunications communication companies. In that case, the Judge does not have much power in denying the request, unless he finds the immunity legislation to be unconstitutional.

Hearings began earlier this morning.

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