Top Spy Must Release Telecom Immunity Meeting Docs ASAP - Via Threat Level:

The Director of National Intelligence must quickly release documents relating to 2007 meetings with telecoms concerning proposed amnesty bills for companies that helped government's secret domestic spying program, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The Northern California District Court judge ruled that the government must produce the documents by December 10 so that the public can be informed about the extent of telecom lobbying before Congress votes on immunity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is leading a lawsuit against AT&T for the telco giant's alleged cooperation with internet monitoring and call record data-mining, asked for the documents in September via a government sunshine request.

The group asked for documents detailing meetings between telecoms and the nation's top spy office, as well as meetings between the spies and legislators. The government agreed to the civil liberties request to 'fast-track' the request.

But months later the DNI still hadn't released any of the 250 unclassified pages of documents or the 65 pages of classified material, prompting the EFF to ask for a judge to force a document dump before Congress finishes work on bills amending the nation's spy laws. The version passed by the House has no immunity provision, while one of two competing versions in the Senate does.

Judge Susan Illston issued the order (.pdf) prior to a planned hearing Friday, writing that:

Congress is currently considering legislation that would amend the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] further. Plaintiff seeks information from defendant specifically so that plaintiff, Congress, and the public may participate in the debate over the pending legislation on an informed basis. Accordingly, the Court finds that plaintiff has shown the likelihood of irreparable injury.

Illston was unpersuaded by the government's defense that vetting the documents line-by-line takes time:

Plaintiff is correct that defendant has failed to provide the Court with “specific information that might explain why it will require four months to process "approximately 250 pages of unclassified material and approximately sixty-five pages of classified material’ identified as responsive to the FOIA requests."

[T]he agency’s description of its United States District Court processing methods in this case—which apparently are assigned to a single agent—appear to be wholly inadequate to the task of handling an expedited request, let alone a standard request, on the timely basis required by Congress. See Hackett Decl. ¶ 8. While defendant notes that it has a small FOIA staff, that argument is more properly directed at Congress, not to the courts.

Telecom's have been lobbying Congress for the provisions, which would let them escape from the bad publicity associated with the cases charging AT&T, Verizon and others with massively violating the nation's privacy laws by turning over sensitive data about Americans to the government without being legally ordered to do so.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee which passed a bill including immunity, came under fire after THREAT LEVEL revealed that telecom executives and their spouses became newly generous donors to Rockefeller earlier this year. Rockefeller denies any connection between the donations and his vote.

See Also:

• Democratic Lawmaker Pushing Immunity Is Newly Flush With Telco Cash
• Senator Denies AT&T, Verizon Cash Bought Spying Immunity Vote
• Former DOJ Insiders Who Fought Spying Ask Senate to Pardon Spying Telcos
• Stage Set for Senate Immunity Showdown As House Passes Spy Bill Without Immunity

(Read Original Article - Via Threat Level.)