Court dismisses secret surveillance suits U.S. SUPREME COURT

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed lawsuits in San Francisco against the nation's telecommunications companies for cooperating with the Bush administration's secret surveillance program, leaving intact an immunity law supported by President Obama.

The 2008 law shielded the companies from liability for their alleged roles in helping the government intercept phone calls and e-mails between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists without a search warrant. Obama voted for the law as a senator and has defended it in court as president.

The high court, without comment, denied a hearing on an appeal by AT&T customers after lower federal courts upheld the law.

The order does not affect a separate wiretapping suit by the customers against the government, currently pending before a federal judge in San Francisco. The plaintiffs allege that federal agents conducted warrantless "dragnet" surveillance that intercepted millions of messages from U.S. residents. The suit is partly based on testimony in 2003 by a former AT&T technician about equipment in the company's Folsom Street office that allowed Internet traffic to be routed to the government.

President George W. Bush acknowledged in 2005 that his administration had eavesdropped on calls to terrorist suspects without the warrants required by federal law.

Most of the ensuing lawsuits were dismissed because plaintiffs were unable to prove they had been wiretapped. An Islamic organization was accidentally sent a copy of its surveillance records and won a ruling from a San Francisco federal judge in 2010 that its rights had been violated. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision in August, saying private citizens who may have been wiretapped have no right to sue the government.

Tuesday's order involved 30 suits against telecom companies around the nation that were consolidated in San Francisco.

The law that derailed those suits authorized the U.S. attorney general to immunize a company from liability by submitting a secret declaration to a judge containing one of two findings: either that the company had cooperated in surveillance that the president considered necessary to prevent a terrorist attack, or that the company had not participated.

Privacy-rights groups protested that the law eliminated public accountability and empowered the attorney general, rather than the courts, to decide whether a company was immune.

But in a 3-0 ruling in December, the appeals court said Congress had properly authorized the attorney general to implement the law "in narrow, definable situations, subject to review by the courts," while preserving the right to sue government officials for ordering illegal surveillance.

Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the AT&T customers, said the Supreme Court's refusal to review that ruling was disappointing.

"This lets telecom companies off the hook for betraying their customers' trust," she said.

The case is Hepting vs. AT&T, 11-1200.