US court hears suit against AT&T's collaboration with domestic spying program

The suit accuses telecommunications giant AT&T of violating the First and Fourth amendments to the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (which prohibits spying on Americans unless authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC]), telecommunications laws and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act by making available to the National Security Agency (NSA) two massive databases that included both the contents of its subscribers’ communications and detailed transaction records, such as numbers dialed and internet addresses visited.

One of AT&T’s databases, known as “Hawkeye,” contains data detailing nearly every telephone communication on AT&T’s domestic network since 2001, according to the Complaint. The suit also alleges that AT&T allowed the NSA to use the company’s powerful Daytona database management software to quickly search this and other communication databases.

The suit requests an injunction and damages that could amount to at least $21,000 for each affected person. According to the EFF website, EFF brought a class action suit in the matter to ensure that any injunction against AT&T would apply throughout the country, not simply in the district in which the lawsuit was filed