It's just coming across the wire that the EFF has won the speedy release of telecoms industry lobbying records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (that's Mike McConnell, folks) pertaining to pending legislation about modification of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), part of which potentially includes something the telecom companies desperately want: retroactive immunity from prosecution for potentially illegal acts of domestic surveillance.
The agency was ordered to comply with a new December 10 deadline -- in time for the documents to play a role in the congressional debate over granting amnesty for telecommunications companies taking part in illegal electronic surveillance. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston vacates a hearing on the matter previously scheduled for Friday.
"We are pleased Judge Illston recognized that time was running out for these documents to make a difference in the legislative debate. She agreed that the Administration is dragging its feet in making relevant information available and stressed that the public has a right to full disclosure before Congress acts on the pending telecom amnesty proposals," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. "The court's order confirms our belief that aggressive use of the Freedom of Information Act is needed to challenge government secrecy."
Victories against the Federal Government on their wiretapping initiatives are few and far between these days. Many judges have found in favor of the Feds through their promiscuous application of the State Secrets clause.
I'd like to see them claim that in this case.
Is December 10th soon enough? One hopes so.
This isn't a huge win, but it is potentially helpful in shining light on the attempts by the telcos to persuade Congress to hold them harmless for (very likely) illegal acts of surveillance against Americans.
It might also give us ammunition for our continuing efforts to prevent our representatives from cooperating with the telcos on this possible change in FISA. I'm in a district whose representative is safely against telecom immunity; but this will help many others, obviously.
I don't have a lot of additional insight to add here; suffice it to say that I HATE what the telcos are attempting to do here. I hope many of us in districts whose reps are in play on this issue can get on them and try to influence their behavior on upcoming votes.
A note: Judge Susan Illston has also just been assigned as the judge for the Barry Bonds perjury case.