Apple, Tim Cook and Others Sued Over Alleged NSA/PRISM Privacy Violations

[MacRumors]

Apple, and Tim Cook personally, have been sued by a conservative activist and three others as part of a class action lawsuit [PDF] over alleged privacy violations resulting from the company's supposed participation in the NSA's PRISM intelligence program.

The plaintiffs have also sued President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, NSA Director Keith Alexander, the NSA itself, the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Skype, AOL, Yahoo, PalTalk, AT&T and Sprint -- and all the CEO's of those companies personally.

As one of the largest companies in the world, Apple is routinely sued over a wide variety of issues. The company has a large legal teams to handle these lawsuits, though the sheer number of defendants in this case could make for interesting court filings.

Plaintiff Larry Klayman issued this statement:

This and the Verizon class action will serve to unify all political and social persuasions in our great nation to wage a second American revolution, one that is peaceful and legal - but pursued with great resolve and force. Government dishonesty and tyranny against the people have reached historic proportions during the last three administrations in particular, and the time has come for We the People to rise up and reclaim control of our nation. If not, the government will control us and this will mark the end of individual liberties. The American people can thus use these class actions to 'man the barricades of freedom' against the establishment government despots and their corporate enablers who seek to enslave them through coercive abuses of their privacy. This Orwellian power grab can only be intended to blackmail the masses into submission in order that these modern day greedy tyrants achieve their corrupt ends.

This isn't the only class action lawsuit filed or planned over the PRISM disclosures. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has said he will file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over what he says are "unconstitutional" surveillance programs. Paul wants to get the customers of all the offending companies to join a class action suit and take it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also filed a lawsuit, though it is focusing on the Government itself rather than the alleged corporate partners. The suit alleges that the Government's tracking of phone records violates Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

It's important to note that both Rand Paul and the ACLU are, at least to this point, primarily speaking out about Verizon Business Network Services giving call logs to the NSA for millions of calls both within the United States and abroad. However, both the Verizon/NSA issue and the Apple-related PRISM allegations were revealed on the same day last week and are largely seen as connected in the eyes of most critics.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple, Tim Cook and Others Sued Over Alleged NSA/PRISM Privacy Violations

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I'm not at all surprised at this action. More to come.

 

[chocolaterabbit]

yeah... good luck with that.

 

[xVeinx]

If you want to change policy, you sue the government. If you want cash, you sue Apple. Unless I'm mistaken, the other companies have no choice but to comply with federal law.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Just another day in the office.

 

[spacehog371]

Edward Snowden wasn't supposed to have access to the powerpoint, and didn't have the context to know what it meant. The NSA didn't have direct access... they sent the information over Secure FTP or by hand, and it wasn't in bulk or on a mass scale.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...671d26-d377-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_print.html

 

[IJ Reilly]

Silly season is starting early this year.

 

[Lark.Landon]

Let's hope that this lawsuit is successful

 

[japanime]

If you want to change policy, you sue the government. If you want cash, you sue Apple...

Well, then, this lawsuit has all its bases covered — as it is directed at both the government and the wealthy corporations.

 

[MultiMediaWill]

We need to get Tim Cook out of Apple. He's just causing more and more lawsuits.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

Any company which willingly goes along with terrible gov't regulations to build in gaping wide backdoors to everything in the servers, cell phones, devices, that can activate cams, microphones and track GPS by the second deserves to be sued and lose their consumer confidence.

I am happy there are people suing every company involved and the gov't.

For a company to go along with unconstitutional laws, or in some cases FCC regulations, without fighting them, they ought to get hit hard for selling their customers out.

 

[50548]

I'm not at all surprised at this action. More to come.

Too bad the average voter from the "land of the free" is not intelligent enough to vote for Ron Paul...enough said.

 

[syd430]

I think I just heard Tim Cook yawn all the way from Australia.

 

[gnasher729]

We need to get Tim Cook out of Apple. He's just causing more and more lawsuits.

Can we first get rid of the CEOs of Facebook, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Skype, AOL, Yahoo, PalTalk, AT&T and Sprint? Plus the US president, and a few others?

You probably didn't notice that Apple has already taken action - in the future, Google will not be asked about any Siri requests anymore, but Microsoft's Bing will be used instead; that should be a significant reduction of privacy risks.

 

[Vol7ron]

Solution to life's problems...sue. Sue early, sue often...


Now I am not dismissing nor agreeing with everything that has transpired in the recent week, but what good is suing going to do? Tim Cook isn't going to lose his house, or be thrown in jail, etc....Apple isn't going to be dissolved, or burdened by this, etc... All that will happen is just lawyers getting money, that is all...and people feeling good that "something" was done about it...

 

[Tiger8]

3 seconds of fame

I am a small-time lawyer who want my 3 seconds of fame, let me sue Tim Cook

 

[alent1234]

Any company which willingly goes along with terrible gov't regulations to build in gaping wide backdoors to everything in the servers, cell phones, devices, that can activate cams, microphones and track GPS by the second deserves to be sued and lose their consumer confidence.

I am happy there are people suing every company involved and the gov't.

For a company to go along with unconstitutional laws, or in some cases FCC regulations, without fighting them, they ought to get hit hard for selling their customers out.

to be sued, you have to break a law
which law was broken? not like the NSA did this on their own. where did they get the money?

 

[franswa za]

We need to get Tim Cook out of Apple. He's just causing more and more lawsuits.

think and then again

 

[GenesisJLS]

Sue huge multinational corps, like this is going to get far...

 

[Lark.Landon]

Too bad the average voter from the "land of the free" is not intelligent enough to vote for Ron Paul...enough said.

You know that insulting people for not* voting for him will make them less likely to vote for him?

 

[ValSalva]

All the facts are not in yet. Maybe this is an attempt at shining the light of day on the facts. Good luck with that. I have a feeling this suit will die a quiet death at the hands of higher government powers.

 

[surf2snow1]

Does anyone else see a little bit of "V for Vendetta" in the statement made by the plaintiffs?

...and the time has come for We the People to rise up and reclaim control of our nation....

 

[ghostface147]

I'll show the NSA. I'll follow them at @NSA.

 

[bdkennedy1]

I'm not sure these companies were actually aware of how this information is obtained. 4 years ago I saw a documentary on cable (can't remember what station, History Channel? Discovery Channel?) about a government program that taps the fiber lines coming into and out of the country. All data is fed through a government computer and is filtered including phone calls. The filter uses key words to narrow down its search. The computer has voice recognition where it takes wavelengths from phone calls and matches the voice to a database.

Needless to say I can't find any information about it anymore.

 

[Laird Knox]

Oops, they forgot Monsanto on the list of defendants.