Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit

The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: The nation's telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying. Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn't enough to squash a rights group's open records request for communications between the nation's telecoms and the feds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of the Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens. The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren't subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as "intra-agency" records: "The communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been regarded as intra-agency because the government and the companies have a common interest in the defense of the pending litigation and the communications regarding the immunity provisions concerned that common interest." US District Court Judge Jeffery White disagreed and ruled on September 24 that the feds had to release the names of the telecom employees that contacted the Justice Department and the White House to lobby for a get-out-of-court-free card.