Wired Takes On AT&T Secrecy

This afternoon, Wired News, along with a bevy of traditional print publications, will be asking the judge presiding over the case against AT&T for its alleged illegal participation in government surveillance to unseal documents at the heart of the accusations against the telecom. AT&T says the documents, provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation by former AT&T technician Mark Klein, contain trade secrets.

Wired News attorney Timothy Alger believes it's unlikely that genuine trade secrets are at issue, but argues that even if they are, the public interest in the case trumps trade-secret protections.

"Even if there are trade-secrets interests, that interest has to yield to the paramount public interest in what the court is deciding," Alger said. "People should know if their phones are being tapped into by AT&T on behalf of the government."

The documents at issue detail a secret switching room in AT&T's San Francisco hub equipped with internet surveillance gear. Klein provided the pages to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T in January 2006, just a month after President Bush acknowledged the existence of the warrantless eavesdropping program.

Through a source not subject to the court's gag order, Wired News acquired and published in May documents that it believes to be near-replicas of portions of the documents under seal. Klein has publicly said the documents he's provided detail his discovery of a surveillance operation in Room 641A at 611 Folsom St. in San Francisco.

For those of you who love reading the originals in pdf form, here's what Wired News is arguing, the print media contends, and what AT&T thinks of the request.

Photo: Ben Stephenson