AT&T WhistleBlower Was Never Invited To TestifyDemocratic Party and Congress turned back on key witness...
07:51AM Tuesday Jul 08 2008 by Karl Bodetags: legal · telco · privacy22-year AT&T employee Mark Klein's
discovery (pdf) that AT&T was funneling Internet and voice data wholesale to the NSA without judicial oversight is at the center of the warrantless wiretapping controversy, and the EFF's lawsuit against carriers and Uncle Sam. Should telecom operators get immunity today, that lawsuit will be scrapped. Klein
talks to Democracy Now's Amy Goodman about life as a whistle blower.
Well, the Democratic Party and the Congress, in general, has been unfriendly to me for the last two years of my efforts. As I say, I’ve been trying to bring my information forward for about two years now. Even after the Congress went Democratic, they turned their back on me, except for a couple of individuals, like Senator Dodd was friendly and a couple of congressmen. No committee of Congress would invite me to testify; it’s never happened.
Klein's comments on the latest version of the bill:
...Now they have a bill that claims to get some kind of concessions. In fact, they got no concessions. This bill would give immunity to the phone companies and thus would kill any hope of finding out what happened by the lawsuits against AT&T and the other companies. And so, Congress is intervening against the judicial process to kill the lawsuits and essentially protect the President..
A vote on this latest bill is scheduled for today and is expected to pass.
