📡 Hepting vs AT&T: from Bush to Obama… and today, are we still being spied on?
1️⃣ In 2006, the EFF sued AT&T for collaborating with the NSA in mass Internet surveillance.
Former AT&T technician Mark Klein revealed the infamous “Room 641A” — where traffic was secretly routed to the government.
2️⃣ The Bush administration defended the program under “state secrets.”
In 2008, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act, granting retroactive immunity to telecoms.
👉 That killed the Hepting case before evidence could even be judged.
3️⃣ Obama campaigned on transparency and reform.
Yes, the USA Freedom Act (2015) limited bulk metadata collection.
But most of the surveillance apparatus stayed intact — just rebranded and legally reframed.
4️⃣ In 2012, the Supreme Court refused to hear EFF’s appeal.
Result: the core claims of Hepting were never fully tested in court.
Legal immunity outweighed constitutional privacy rights.
5️⃣ Today, after Snowden and other leaks, we know surveillance programs still exist.
Not always blanket bulk collection, but constant monitoring of international communications, metadata analysis, and now AI applied to “big data.”
6️⃣ What can we do?
Signal: end-to-end encrypted, minimal metadata.
Tuta.io (ex Tutanota): encrypted email, no ads.
Proton, Matrix, Briar: privacy-first alternatives.
👉 These tools don’t make you invisible, but they raise the cost of mass surveillance.
The key: strong encryption + open source + minimal data retention.
7️⃣ Lessons from Hepting v. AT&T:
Governments expand surveillance, even when promising the opposite.
Laws can shield corporations that cooperate.
Protecting privacy is partly in our hands — through the tech we choose and the pressure we apply.
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💡 If we learned about “Room 641A” in 2006… what hidden rooms exist today?
Surveillance never stopped — it just evolved.
Resistance means supporting and using tools that give us back some control.