20 Quotes by Kevin Bankston

The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it.

As best we can tell, the NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans' calls and e-mails for suspicious patterns.

AT&T is breaking the law and invading the privacy of its customers.

AT&T aided the NSA in intercepting all or a substantial part of communications going over their network. We don't exactly know what the NSA is doing with that data.

The NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls and emails for 'suspicious' patterns, and it's the collaboration of US telecom companies like AT&T that makes it possible.

I think now they're just realizing the scales are tilting against them, and (appeals are) going to be unavoidable.

But, it's at least wearing a grey hat.

Certainly this would be an important case. The fact that they may appeal this one would be of great note and I think would be a victory (for privacy advocates). Based on so many decisions against them, the Justice Department is finally bowing to pressure and submitting its theory to appellate scrutiny.

The key distinguishing factor between this and what has happened in the past is, it had always been retail surveillance -- the government targeted specific people and the telecom companies received warrants and allowed it. What we're alleging here is wholesale data surveillance.