AT&T and the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program (2005–2008)
In 2005, the New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency had been conducting warrantless wiretapping of American citizens' communications since 2001. In 2006, whistleblower Mark Klein disclosed that AT&T had installed fiber-optic splitters at its San Francisco facility to copy all internet traffic for the NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T on behalf of its customers.
A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to proceed despite government claims of state secrets privilege.
In 2008, Congress passed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the surveillance program, effectively ending the litigation and shielding the companies from accountability.
The AT&T precedent illustrates what can happen when private companies cooperate with government surveillance without explicit restrictions: the legal system may ultimately protect the companies and the government rather than citizens. OpenAI's amended contract language attempts to prevent a similar dynamic by establishing contractual limits before AI-assisted surveillance can begin—a structural difference from the telecom era, where restrictions came only after the fact.