Dismissal of lawsuits, thy name is National Security:

District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly dismissed yesterday a lawsuit brought against AT&T on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other citizens of Chicago opposed to the National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap program. Filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after the revelation of the NSA’s highly classified warrantless eavesdropping activities, the suit alleges that AT&T colluded with the secretive government agency in an extralegal domestic surveillance conspiracy that involved providing the government with access to private consumer phone records. The ACLU had hoped to convince the court to issue an injunction that would prevent AT&T from perpetuating its participation in the surveillance program.

During the case, the federal government invoked the state secrets privilege in an attempt to get the case thrown out. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl J. Nichols argued that explicit confirmation or denial of the program’s existence would constitute an unacceptable risk to national security, saying that “the present situation involves a risk of terrorist attacks against the United States, so even the smallest risk is not a risk that we should tolerate.”

Opponents of the NSA wiretap program argue that widespread public knowledge of the program already eliminates any security advantages that could potentially have been gleaned from secrecy and that the government is exploiting the state secrets privilege to obscure misconduct from scrutiny.

[Ars Technica: Link]

The indefatigueable Boing Boing reports on this and related matters

Courts dismiss one AT&T spying suit, and US gov sues Missouri

[Boing Boing: Link]

Meanwhile, Slashdot is … brimming with Slashdotty goodness:

“A major victory by the federal government was won today when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit against AT&T for providing phone records to the federal government.

From the article: ‘The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government’s intelligence activities’.

Not to be confused with the EFF case, this case was filed by the ACLU on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists who argued that their constitutional rights had been violated by the actions of AT&T and the NSA.

[Slashdot: Link]