Judge tells US spooks to sling their hook

THE US government has been rapped over the knuckles for trying to get a case against AT&T dismissed on the grounds of state security.

AT&T is involved in a case with the National Security Agency (NSA) for setting up an illegal wiretapping operation to spy on ordinary US people's phone calls without a search warrant.

The case is embarrassing to the Bush administration, which told the Judge he was not allowed to continue with the case because it was a threat to state security.

However, in a ruling handed down in the US District Court of the Northern District of California, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker denied the government's motion.

Judge Walker was critical of the government's assertions saying that to defer to a blanket assertion of state secrecy here would be to "abdicate duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired". He said that the compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.<<P> Judge Walker said that if the government had been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T's role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security.

If the Government had been lying then the state secrets privilege "should not serve as a shield for its false public statements," he wrote.

The government is expected to appeal. µ