The National Security Agency, other governmental agencies, and President George W. Bush are named in a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The action by EFF, a nonprofit with offices in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, also accuses Vice President Dick Cheney; David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff; Alberto Gonzales, former White House counsel and attorney general; and John McConnell, director of national intelligence, of participation in domestic surveillance.
The EFF filed the lawsuit to stop the NSA from allegedly spying on millions of Americans and to hold those who authorized the spying accountable. The EFF is also asking in its 55-page brief that all surveillance records be destroyed and for punitive, statutory and actual damages plus legal fees.
“For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T’s domestic networks and databases of customer records,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for EFF. “Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible.”
Cindy Cohn, legal director for EFF, said the lawsuit should send a message to the White House’s future administration that breaking the law by violating Americans’ right to privacy means consequences.
The NSA declined to comment on pending litigation.
This is the second lawsuit by EFF for domestic spying. In 2006, EFF filed a suit against AT&T after Mark Klein, a telecommunications technician at AT&T, blew the whistle on the telecom giant. Klein said AT&T had a secret room called the SG3 Secure Room controlled by the NSA where millions of AT&T customers’ phone conversations and Internet chats were being watched without their knowledge.
The SG3 room, according to court papers, contained sophisticated equipment, including a Narus Semantic Traffic Analyzer. The analyzer looks through…