'I warned whoever I could': surveillance alarm bells sounded years ago

June 14, 2013 - 2:02PM
Paul Elias
A telecommunications technician alleged AT&T was allowing its customer data to be mined in 2006.

Before there was Edward Snowden and the leak of explosive documents showing widespread government surveillance, there was Mark Klein, a telecommunications technician who alleged that AT&T was allowing US spies to siphon vast amounts of customer data without warrants ...

The lawsuits prompted by Mr Klein's disclosures were bundled up and shipped to a single San Francisco federal judge to handle. Nearly all were tossed out in 2008 when Congress granted the telecommunications industry retroactive immunity from legal challenges, which the Supreme Court upheld ...

The only lawsuit left from that bundle is one aimed directly at the government. And that case has been tied up in litigation over the Justice Department's insistence that airing the case in court would jeopardise national security ...

"The government painted me as a nobody, a technician who was merely speculating," said Mr Klein, who made his disclosures after he accepted a buyout and retired from AT&T in 2004 ...

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/it-pro/security-it/i-warned-whoever-i-could-surveillance-alarm-bells-sounded-years-ago-20130613-2o6hr.html