The Phone Company and the Feds — a Buddy Movie from Hell

[Commentary] The news that AT&T has evidenced “extreme willingness to help” the National Security Agency collect, filter, analyze, and disseminate billions of communications by Americans wasn’t particularly surprising. After all, the giant phone company has been tightly involved with America’s national security operations for decades. The obvious next question: Who will get to boss whom around? AT&T and our government are not, and should not be, peers plotting how to avoid existing legal constraints by collaborating. But that seems to be what happens, over and over again. What’s the solution?

The clear, accessible explanations of the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have shone a bright light on the implementation of some of our national security surveillance programs. At least we’re now able to talk about (part of) what’s happening, and how legal it is. The only way we’ll get through this is to continue to support the PCLOB, continue the legal dialogue, and remember, always, that companies are subject to the rule of law. And not the other way around.

[Crawford is a professor at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center.]