AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit

[sabra]

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6077353.html?part=rss&tag=6077353&subj=news

AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit

AT&T's attorneys this week filed a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages and render them unreadable (click here for PDF).

But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple Computer's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. The deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action lawsuit in January, alleges that the room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.

...

Another section says: "Although the plaintiffs ominously refer to the equipment as the 'Surveillance Configuration,' the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

[MadMaddie]

1. Greedy, Corrupt and Stupid!!! I hope it leads to the Demise of AT&T

and other dumbass companies...

[drm604]

2. PDF Readers.

"But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple Computer's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11."

Interesting that they only mention a couple of less common PDF readers. You can copy and paste that "obscured" text just fine with plain old Acrobat Reader. It makes me wonder what other unsuccessfully "obscured" PDFs are out on the web.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. An advertisemnet in a "news" item?

:wow: :tinfoilhat:

[alfredo]

13. I wonder how they do it using Preview. I tried

several ways of copy paste, but nothing yet.

I figured it out. I opened it in Adobe Reader then copy and pasted it into a text file.

[NoQuarter]

14. Use the text tool in Preview

Select the text then use the Services submenu under the Preview Menu to place it into a Text Edit document which will open automatically.

[alfredo]

19. Thanks. I will try that method too. Easier.

Didn't work.

got this:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

prima facie case that there has been an “interception” of “contents” within the meaning of
18 U.S.C. § 2510(4) & (8), whether there has been “electronic surveillance” within the
meaning of 50 U.S.C. § 1801(f), and whether particular statutory exemptions do not apply,
see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2702(c). Certainly nothing compels the inference that the contents of
communications of “millions of ordinary Americans,” (Motion for Preliminary Injunction
(Dkt. 30) at 11), have been divulged to the government, in contradiction of the
government’s statement that communications are intercepted only if the government has “a
reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda,”
or otherwise affiliated with al Qaeda. Press Briefing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
and General Michael Hayden, Plaintiffs’ Request for Judicial Notice (Attachment 2) (Dkt.
20).

[tech3149]

3. After reading the redacted sections of the pdf

I'm scratching my head saying "why should this not be publicly available)"? The most important thing was discussion of the equipment and configuration being used for spam filtering and such. That would be something I would expect them to tout as a positive.

[drm604]

4. Maybe because it's an admission that the equipment does, in fact, exist.

That's just a guess, I haven't read the whole document, just the "obscured" areas, so I don't know if there's any admissions there that are different from what's in the rest of the document.

[LizW]

12. That's it.

This is scary. Their big, "so secret we can't show it to you" argument is that the equipment is there, but "could be" used for benign purposes?

If that's the best argument they can make in a legal brief, they're as much as conceding the case.

It "could be" used for other things? How about telling us WHAT IT IS used for, AT&T? Better yet, PROVE that it is NOT what the plaintiffs allege it is.

:grr:

[Biernuts]

22. Burden of Proof

This is a federal civil case in US District Court. As in any civil case the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, in this case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (In criminal cases, the burden is on the prosecution. Defendants may remain completely silent, present no evidence, cross examine no witness and still win if the plaintiff or prosecutor doesn't make the case.) Here's the link to their homepage: http://www.eff.org/ The defendant, AT&T, will not have to prove anything. Regardless of the case or the parties involved, we don't want to make defendants prove their innocence

[wicket]

6. Whoa

:popcorn:

[rzemanfl]

7. Didn't this happen with some Pentagon document a couple of

years ago? So much shit, so few brain cells left after 59 years on the planet.

[drm604]

8. Now I'm thinking...

There may be a lot of partially censored PDFs out on the web on government sites, etc. Possibly many of them are like this one and not permanently obscured. They are now going to be pulling them from public as fast as they can. How many can we sweep up during the long weekend?

[bonito]

9. Yea, but can the count our votes

:wtf: Really, stupid americans.

[Mr_Spock]

10. I hate my former company - bunch of RW jerks anyway

That company was the most RW organization I ever worked for. I also noticed that all of their factories were in conservative areas.

"F" AT&T.

[YankeyMCC]

11. Also here:

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6077353.html?part=rss&tag=6077353&subj=news

[noel adamson]

15. Maybe it is intentionally not really redacted to obscure a more...

...sinister truth by shifting focus to this relatively benign information without appearing to be consciously advancing false or misleading information.

[drm604]

20. I think you're giving them way too much credit.

I doubt that they're that clever. In any case I don't see this how this would help them. I also don't think it hurts them all that much, other than making them look foolish.

[noel adamson]

23. You're probably right about that considering the poor forgery...

..of the "Nigerian documents" with the signature of an official who had been out of the Nigerian government for a decade, the poor choreography of so many other staged right wing events.

[rocktivity]

16. The report regarding the Italian reporter hostage who was shot in Iraq

featured the same mistake....if it WAS a "mistake"...

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[sarcasmo]

17. Kick and Nom to the top.

United Corporations of America.


UCA

[babydollhead]

18. kick

[Poll_Blind]

21. Excellent information- thanks! K&R! n/t

PB

[fakingit]

24. Rid

Get rid of this sorry couple.....

[DiscussTheTruth]

25. Is anything not a state secret?

[luke_nichols]

26. NSA Domestic Spying Links

I compiled a list of NSA Domestic Warrantless Spying Articles:

http://truth4you.no-ip.org/special/nsa.html

Also, if you are against this, Demand a Special Prosecutor Investigate GW Bush:

http://truth4you.no-ip.org/special/demand.html

Thanks for your support!

Maybe getting rid of Bush now would be like closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out, but it will send a strong signal to other Neocons, and Neocon sympathizers:

We are not going to put up with this Bull Crap: Not in OUR America!

Luke Nichols
[e-mail]