In a victory for the EFF, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled today that AT&T, Verizon, Cingular (now part of AT&T), Sprint, and BellSouth (also part of AT&T now) must all maintain any data or papers related to the NSA spying case that Walker is overseeing in California. The EFF had requested the ruling out of concern that documents would be destroyed as part of routine data deletion practices before the case could even progress to discovery.

The move was opposed not only by the telcos but also by the federal government, which has repeatedly pursued the claim that the case involves "state secrets" and should not proceed.

A hearing on the matter was to have been held on November 15, but Walker decided after reading the papers submitted by both sides that no hearing was necessary. Instead, he ordered the telcos to retain all "documents, data and tangible things in the possession, custody and control of the parties to this action, and any employees, agents, contractors, carriers, bailees or other non-parties who posses materials reasonably anticipated to be subject to discovery in this action."

Counsel for each company are specifically told to make sure that no routine business practices result in the destruction of useful information. Walker also ordered the lead counsel for each telco to notify him in writing before December 14 that the order had been carried out.

The order comes a day before the AT&T whistleblower who bolstered the EFF's case, a technician named Mark Klein, holds a DC press conference to publicly discuss his claims of "secrets rooms" and optical splitters. He will also call for Congress to grant no retroactive immunity to the telcos for their part in the entire surveillance scheme.

While the order is certainly good news for the EFF, it does not require the telcos to say if they have any such evidence and it does not mean the case will necessarily move on to discovery.