Judge throws out eavesdropping suits

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday threw out more than three dozen lawsuits claiming that the nation's major telecommunications companies had illegally assisted in the wiretapping-without-warrants program approved by President Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in Northern California said that although consumer and privacy groups raised important constitutional issues in their claims, Congress had left no doubt about its "unequivocal intention" when it passed a measure last summer giving immunity to phone carriers in the wiretapping program.

The ruling represents a major victory for AT&T and other carriers, which faced potential damages of billions of dollars if they lost the cases. It also represents a victory for intelligence officials in Washington, who had fought assertively in their defense.

Officials from the Bush and the Obama administrations said that the cooperation of the phone companies has been vital to national security and that penalizing them for their participation would jeopardize important surveillance operations.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy and civil-liberties group, said they would appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The groups argued that the lawsuits were one of the few means available for the public to gain important information about the underpinnings of the wiretapping program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without court warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of links to al-Qaida.

They also said Congress had acted unconstitutionally, essentially taking over a role reserved for the courts in deciding the legal liability of the phone companies over accusations that they had violated the privacy rights of their customers.

After a fight lasting months, Congress last July included the immunity provision for the phone companies in a broader overhaul of federal wiretapping law.

The debate put President Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois, in an awkward political position, as he initially opposed the provision and vowed to filibuster it, only to anger some supporters by voting for it.

Under Obama, the Justice Department has maintained the Bush administration's forceful efforts to kill the lawsuits, and the department said Wednesday that it was pleased by the ruling.

In his ruling, Walker said the legal protection carved out by Congress for the phone companies appeared unique in immunity law. "It creates a retroactive immunity for past, completed acts committed by private parties acting in concert with government entities that allegedly violated constitutional rights," he wrote.

But he said the objections of the privacy groups were not strong enough to override the wishes of Congress.