EFF Applauds House Passage of Surveillance Bill with No Telecom Immunity

Bill Would Allow Spying Cases to Proceed Fairly and Securely

Washington, D.C. - This morning the House of
Representatives passed a compromise surveillance bill that
does not include retroactive immunity for phone companies
alleged to have assisted in the NSA's warrantless
wiretapping program. The bill would allow lawsuits like the
Electronic Frontier Foundation's case against AT&T to
proceed while providing specific security procedures
allowing the telecom giants to defend themselves in court.

The House bill succeeded 213 to 197 despite the president's
threat to veto any bill that does not include immunity.

"We applaud the House for refusing to grant amnesty to
lawbreaking telecoms, and for passing a bill that would
allow our lawsuit against AT&T to proceed fairly and
securely," said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Senior
Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Amnesty proponents have
been claiming on the Hill for months that phone companies
like AT&T had a good faith belief that the NSA program was
legal. Under this bill, the companies could do what they
should have been able to do all along: tell that story to a
judge."

The Senate is expected to consider the House bill when it
returns from recess on Monday, March 31. House and Senate
staff are expected to spend much of the break negotiating
over differences between the new House bill and a previous
Senate bill that includes immunity provisions.

"This newly-passed House bill represents a true compromise
on the amnesty issue: customers whose privacy was violated
would get their day in court, while the companies would be
allowed to defend themselves despite the Administration's
broad demands for secrecy," said EFF Legal Director Cindy
Cohn. "We look forward to assisting the Senate in its
consideration of this compromise solution, which EFF
believes is the only reasonable response to the White
House's attempt to evade court review of its illegal spying
program and the phone companies' collaboration in it."

EFF represents the plaintiffs in Hepting v. AT&T, a
class-action lawsuit brought by AT&T customers accusing the
telecommunications company of violating their rights by
illegally assisting the National Security Agency in
widespread domestic surveillance. The Hepting case is the
leading case aimed at holding telecoms responsible for
knowingly violating federal privacy laws with warrantless
wiretapping and the illegal transfer of vast amounts of
personal data to the government.

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/03/14