Legal Commentary

EFF Fighting the Good Fight on Wiretap Case Immunity

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a reply brief yesterday in response to the federal government’s and telecoms’ motion for dismissal or summary judgment in an ongoing lawsuit against the telecoms for their (alleged) participation in illegal warrantless surveillance. The case is captioned “In re National Security Agency Telecommunications Records Litigation, Mdl No. 1791”.

This is the suit that motivated the immunity provisions of the FISA amendments. But they were drafted in a very very odd way that leaves some substantial daylight for challenges. And the great lawyers at EFF have done a first-rate job of running for daylight.

[Disclosure: In addition to serving on EFF’s Advisory Board, I had a minor role in assisting the EFF legal team on one of the issues.]

Full post as published by Discourse.net on November 21, 2008 (boomark / email).