The empire strikes back  The Bush Administration, in a legal
response to a lawsuit against AT&T’s collaboration with the
government to spy on Americans is taking the position that he
can’t discuss why it spies on who it wants, when it wants and by
whatever means it wants.  Writes Bob Egelko in The San Francisco
Chonicle:  The Bush administration has launched a multi-pronged
attack on a lawsuit that accuses AT&T of collaborating with the
U.S. government in illegal electronic surveillance, arguing that
customers can’t prove their phones were tapped or that the
company or the government broke the law _ and that, in any
event, the entire case endangers national security.  Those
assertions in a move for dismissal were based on arguments and
evidence that the government submitted to a federal judge under
seal, keeping them secret from the public and from the privacy-
rights group that filed the suit on behalf of AT&T customers.
The sealed documents and a heavily edited public version were
submitted in federal court