News broke in December 2005 that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been inter- cepting the phone calls and Internet communications of millions of U.S. citizens without warrants and in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) brought a class-action lawsuit in January 2006 against AT&T, arguing it had given the NSA unchecked backdoor access to its communications network and its record databases. AT&T moved to dismiss the case, claiming it was immune from suit because it had been following the orders of government officials.
The government also moved to dismiss the case, arguing that allowing it to proceed would necessarily reveal "state secrets," threatening national security. In July 2006, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker denied both defense motions, allowing the suit to go forward. Dismissing AT&T's immunity argument, he wrote: "AT&T cannot seri- ously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal." Regarding the government's secrecy argument, he wrote: "The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security."
Find out what happened with the appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.