U.S.-China Surveillance

From last Thursday’s (1/25/07) San Francisco Chronicle:

Telephone companies and the Bush administration, which are defending themselves against lawsuits accusing them of colluding in illegal surveillance of Americans, scored a tactical victory when a federal judge refused to allow California courts to consider claims that the companies violated state privacy laws.

Worth reading the whole article for details on the NSA-related privacy litigation against Verizon and At&T, and Chief U.S. District Judge Walker’s January 18 decision to keep the case in federal courts (and out of the state of California).

Some other interesting graphs:

The ruling leaves the two lawsuits intact but in a court preferred by the government and the phone companies, who have warned of inconsistent rulings and mass confusion if customers could sue in state courts around the nation. Some state judges may also be less willing than federal courts to accept the government’s claim that the lawsuits endanger national security…

Walker is hearing more than three dozen privacy-rights suits against communications companies that were transferred to his San Francisco court by a federal panel last August. The suits accuse the companies of sharing their records, and in some cases their networks, with the National Security Agency for monitoring phone and e-mail messages between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists.