A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists against the NSA program of collecting phone-company records has been dismissed.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said that "The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities."
A number of such lawsuits have been filed around the country against AT&T and other phone companies for having provided users' records to the National Security Administration.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco had ruled that media reports of the program were so widespread there was no danger of spilling secrets.
But Judge Kennelly said the news reports amounted to speculation and in no way constituted official confirmation that phone records had been turned over.
He also said Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their records had been provided to the government. As a result, they lacked standing to sue the government, he said.
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