The Case Against Retroactive Amnesty for Telecoms
Congress is now considering whether the President has unilateral power to ask companies to break American law.
For more than five years, AT&T and other telephone companies broke the law and violated their customers' privacy rights by sending billions of private domestic internet and telephone communications and records to the National Security Agency.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is co-lead counsel in the pending lawsuits against these companies. We urge members of Congress to heed the call of editorial pages across the nation and oppose any form of retroactive immunity for telephone companies.
Key Facts
- Reporting from every major American media outlet and undisputed whistleblower evidence show that AT&T and other phone companies were complicit in the NSA's warrantless surveillance. This included the records and full content of the private domestic communications of millions of ordinary Americans. The President and the phone companies hid this information from Congress and the American people for at least six years.
- These actions violated at least four major privacy laws that have protected Americans' privacy for over 30 years. The laws deliberately and specifically require telephone companies to safeguard the privacy of their customers communications, especially when the government seeks to access them. The violation of these laws is at the core of almost forty pending lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other telephone companies. These lawsuits have been consolidated before Judge Vaughn Walker in California.
- Now, the phone companies and the Bush administration are trying to bar Americans from defending their privacy. Their arguments in favor of retroactive immunity are manipulative, illogical and simply unconvincing.
- The American people deserve their day in court. Companies that break the law deserve to be held accountable. Oppose retroactive amnesty for telecommunications companies.
Key Resources
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- Letter to Congress from Chairman John DingellPDF "By tying the question of lawsuit immunity to questions of national security and FISA reform legislation, the President has created a false choice for Congress..."
- The Telephone Companies Aren't "Heroes"PDF Amnesty proponents call the telephone companies who ignored Congress “heroes.” Here are the facts...
- Three Keys: The Compelling Case against Blanket Retroactive Telephone Company AmnestyPDF As Congress enters the final stages of considering legislation to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the EFF urges all Members to consider the following three critical points...
- How AT&T secretly funneled billions of communications to the NSAPDF Summary of AT&T’s role in dragnet surveillance of millions of its customers.
- Editorial and Opinion pages across the nation oppose retroactive amnesty for phone companies This page summarizes dozens of editorials from major US newspapers.
- Legal Document Archive Legal documents related to EFF's pending class action lawsuit.
- EFF NSA Graphics Images and graphics related to NSA spying and telecom immunity.
- Freeze: Congress Can and Should Take Time to Consider the Complex Issues Arising from the Carriers’ Demand for AmnestyPDF
- One-pager: CapsPDF If telephone company liability is to be "capped," damages must be fair to plaintiffs and proportionate to defendants' resources in order to assure FISA’s future "Exclusivity."
- One-pager: Courts and States SecretsPDF No national security information has ever leaked from federal courts in more than 50 years of FISA and States Secrets cases; Congress can trust them fully in the pending cases.
- One-pager: FISA ModernizationPDF Why lawmakers should reject retroactive amnesty for telephone company violation of millions of Americans’ privacy rights.
- One-pager: Mark Klein, AT&T WhistleblowerPDF Mark Klein is a former AT&T telecommunications technician who has come forward to provide evidence of the company’s illegal collaboration with the NSA.
- One-pager: Multi-District LegislationPDF While the Multi-District Litigation (MDL) is complex, EFF’s records indicate that there are currently 47 cases pending in the MDL overall, with a range of legal theories, plaintiffs and defendants.
- One-pager: Statement from Brian ReidPDF Brian Reid is currently the Director of Engineering and Technical Operations at Internet Systems Consortium, a non-profit organization devoted to supporting a non-proprietary Internet.
- One-pager: The Telecoms Knowingly and Intentionally Violated at Least 4 Statutes That Require Telcoms to Protect Customer PrivacyPDF Four statutory causes of action Congress created to hold telecoms accountable for illegal surveillance play a crucial role in providing a judicial forum for warrantless surveillance: FISA, the Wiretap Act, The Communications Act, and the Stored Communications Act.
- One-pager: Telephone Companies Have Ample Resources to Fully Defend ThemselvesPDF, 127.19 KB Phone companies argue that litigation would be a "crushing burden". Whether viewed from the perspective of telephone companies’ human or financial resources, this argument is completely unsupportable.
- Letter to Congress from Chairman John DingellPDF
