The case consolidated 33 lawsuits filed against various telecom companies. | REUTERS Court OKs immunity for telecoms

SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. appeals court on Thursday said a 2008 law granting telecommunications companies legal immunity for helping the National Security Agency with an email and telephone eavesdropping program is constitutional.

The case had consolidated 33 lawsuits filed against various telecom companies on behalf of customers that accused the companies of violating the law and customers’ privacy by collaborating with NSA on intelligence gathering through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.


The case is related to surveillance rules passed by Congress in 2008 that included protection from legal liability for telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. spy on Americans without warrants.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argued the case before the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “I think what Congress did was an abdication of its duty to protect people from illegal surveillance.”

In a separate opinion on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the court revived two other lawsuits that seek redress for telecom customers whose information may have been compromised by the warrantless surveillance program.

In its unanimous ruling, the court noted comments by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the legal immunity’s role in helping the government gather intelligence.

“It emphasized that electronic intelligence gathering depends in great part on cooperation from private companies … and that if litigation were allowed to proceed against persons allegedly assisting in such activities, ‘the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future,’” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote.

Two groups of telecom customers had sued NSA for violating their privacy by collecting Internet data from telecom companies in the surveillance program authorized by former President George W. Bush.

Government lawyers have moved to stop such cases, arguing that defending the program in court would jeopardize national security.

The suits will be sent back to U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Emails seeking comment from the U.S. Department of Justice weren’t immediately returned.

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