20 Quotes by Kevin Bankston

Based on the published reports and after a reasonable investigation, we think that discovery is going to show that AT&T has opened up its network to direct access by the NSA.

If state secrecy can prevent us from preserving the rights of millions upon millions of people, then there is a profound problem with the law.

Having a third party know all of the news you read is troublesome enough. It gives away key details about your beliefs, your opinions and your interests.

I think we are going to definitely have a fight on state-secret issues. I would also point out that the state-secret privilege has never come up in a case where the rights of so many have been at issue.

Our goal is to go after the people who are making the government's illegal surveillance possible. They could not do what they are doing without the help of companies like AT&T. We want to make it clear to AT&T that it is not in their legal or economic interests to violate the law whenever the president asks them to.

Our main goal is to stop this invasion of privacy, prevent it from occurring again and make sure AT&T and all the other carriers understand there are going to be legal and economic consequences when they fail to follow the law.

We are quite confident that discovery would reveal evidence proving our allegations correct.

We're alleging the violation of multiple federal statutes regarding wiretapping and privacy of communications records. We're saying that by giving direct access to key telecom facilities in the U.S., AT&T gave the NSA access to nearly all of the communications going over the AT&T network.

There are rules prohibiting wiretapping and when companies can release this kind of information. And since AT&T is acting as an agent of the government, we're also alleging constitutional violations of First- and Fourth-amendment rights to privacy.