A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit that aimed to stop a major U.S. communications company from supplying the U.S. government with telephone records for use in intelligence gathering. Citing national security, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said he would not consider the case against AT&T. “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,” Kennelly said. The lawsuit was one of several filed after news media revealed that AT&T and other phone companies had turned over the phone records of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency (NSA). That revelation came after last year's disclosure of an NSA wiretap program, which targeted international emails and phone calls with one end in the United States. Kennelly's ruling was in sharp contrast to last week's decision from U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco, who said media reports of the program were so widespread there was no danger of revealing state secrets. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists who said their constitutional rights were violated by the program. Justice Department attorneys argued that it would violate laws against divulging state secrets for the case to proceed. The ACLU argued that the practice was no longer secret, because it had been reported by the media. Kennelly disagreed, saying the news reports amounted to speculation, rather than official confirmation that phone records had been turned over. Kennelly also said the plaintiffs had not shown that their records had been provided to the government and therefore lacked standing to sue the government. ACLU legal director Harvey Grossman said his group respectfully disagreed. “A private company … should not be able to escape accountability for violating a federal statute and the privacy of their customers on the basis that a program widely discussed in the public is secret,” he said. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and NSA Director Lieutenant General Keith Alexander submitted private statements to Kennelly, without ACLU lawyers present. Kennelly said his ruling was not based on the statement, but he also issued a separate memorandum discussing the points raised in the classified material.
