Recently, retired AT&T technician Mark Klein has come forward and submitted an affidavit alleging that AT&T has equipment set up that monitors and diverts its customers’ internet traffic and phone calls to the NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a class-action suit against AT&T, and has demanded that AT&T immediately cease this illegal activity. They have filed evidence that they say supports their claims, including documents explaining how the spying equipment works. Unfortunately, none of us are able to view the actual evidence for ourselves because it has been kept secret from the public.
In fact, we may never know what kind of evidence the EFF and Mark Klein have, because the case may never come to trial. The government can request that the court throw the entire suit out under the State Secrets Privilege. Hence, for the moment, we are all left to wonder whether the government is listening to our phone calls and reading our e-mails, and what it is doing – or with whom it is sharing – our information.
For anyone not yet convinced of the warrantless wiretapping program's illegality
There is simply no question that the wiretapping program is illegal. Remember Nixon and Watergate? At that time, our nation was grappling with the same questions as it now is with regard to presidential power and warrantless surveillance. It wasn't legal when Nixon did it. In fact, just so there would be no further confusion over the legality of a president or the executive branch wiretapping without warrants, Congress passed and President Carter signed a new law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This act made explicit the fact that warrants are required for surveillance. The act also spells out exactly how to legally wiretap. In addition, to allow the government flexibility in cases where it didn't have time to obtain a warrant, there is a special part that allows the government to wiretap immediately w/o warrant - provided they go back to a special FISA court after the fact to a special court later to obtain one. The FISA court has granted over 18,761 and rejected only 5. Furthermore, FISA has been updated 5 times since September 11, 2001, to adapt it to the demands of wiretapping a new type of enemy.
The administration has tried claiming that it can violate FISA because congress voted to go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in late 2001. It has also tried to claim that the US Constitution gives the president the authority to pick and choose which laws he or she wants to follow, and which ones he or she does not want to follow. Call me crazy, but I couldn't find that part in the constitution.
For anyone wondering why average, law-abiding citizes should care that the government is spying on them without judicial oversight
Check out this animation for a peek into a world without privacy, where the government collects information about its citizens and does whatever the hell it wants: