Nancy Pelosi talked tough during election season, but it appears that’s all it was – just talk.

Not only is the EFF trying to remind the government, citizens, and AT&T that the Constitution forbids such practices, they’re also throwing the fact that AT&T, eighty years ago, actually took the side of the citizens.

In 1928, when the telephone was proliferating throughout the US, AT&T likened government surveillance of phone lines to the writs of assistance issued by King George II and III authorizing searches of anyone, anywhere, whether or not they were suspected of a crime.

If you remember your American history, this was one of the "abuses and usurpations" that made it necessary for the British colonies in America "to dissolve the political which" had connected them. In short, it was a cause for revolution.

So when the question of wiretapping came to the Supreme Court’s attention in 1928, AT&T filed an amicus brief against the United States.

Excerpted from that, as the EFF’s Derek Slater shows, is the following:

"The telephone companies deplore the use of their facilities in furtherance of any criminal or wrongful enterprise. But it was not solicitude for law breakers that caused the people of the United States to ordain the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as part of the Constitution…. [I]t is better that a few criminals escape than that the privacies of life of all the people be exposed to the agents of the government, who will act at their own discretion, the honest and the dishonest, unauthorized and unrestrained by courts.

"The telephone has become part and parcel of the social and business intercourse of the people of the United States, and this telephone system offers a means of espionage to which general warrants and writs of assistance were the puniest instruments of tyranny and oppression."

It begs the question: What has happened to Ma Bell over the last century that it would repeatedly take sides against the wishes and rights of the American public? And what happened to the ideals of government we set up so long ago?

My guess: Money happened. Lots of it.

Slater concludes:

AT&T isn’t the only one in need of a history lesson; Congress is, too, and it’s up to each and every one of us to set our representatives straight. By passing horrible legislation last week permitting the warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications, Congress failed to do its job and check the Executive’s abuse of power. Now we must do our democratic duty and help restore our Constitutional rights.

And I conclude with a quote from the man that wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion… We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?"

Looks like we’ve waited far too long.

US District Court Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr ruled from his Delaware bench that companies receiving subpoenas from AMD can comply with them, The Inquirer reported. Apparently, many firms had refused to comply, because of their existing agreements with Intel.

AMD sued Intel in June 2005, claiming a variety of abuses by Intel. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz and his attorneys made an entertaining, human-readable version of the lawsuit available to detail their complaints, which they also supplemented with a conference call about the antitrust filing.

Among the stories emerging from the filing was one anecdote about Compaq and Intel. Former Compaq CEO Michael Capellas characterized his firm’s relationship with Intel as having “a gun to his head.” Ruiz also accused Intel of “old-fashioned threats, intimidation and ‘knee-capping’ to deter OEMs from dealing with AMD.”

Now that Judge Farnan has compelled the waiver of non-disclosure agreements with Intel by third parties, even more enlightening tales of the hyper-competitive world of processors should emerge through court testimony.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

The European war on America continues unabated. As the EU Commission seeks to force Microsoft into what could be a disastrous opening of its source code, a trade war between the trading partners has exploded on the Boeing/Airbus subsidy issue.

Now, another member of the EU has found reason to complain about America. Jess Villasante says IBM, HP, and Sun use the open source community as mere subcontractors.

Speaking in Amsterdam at a conference on open software, Mr. Villasante contends companies do not encourage the open source community to develop commercial projects. Instead, businesses simply offer open source products under their brand name.

“Companies are using the potential of communities as subcontractors — the open source community today [is a] subcontractor of American multinationals,” said Mr. Villasante.

Mr. Villasante seems to discount the support those companies have offered to the open source community, as well as their ability to encourage businesses to adopt open source technology. Businesses have been reluctant to adopt projects unsupported by a formal company; having IBM or Sun backing a project can give it more perceived credibility.

And companies like Sun have contributed to projects like OpenOffice and others. Meanwhile, the EU has adopted a software patent directive that is seen in some quarters as damaging to open source.

Mr. Villasante sidestepped the question by saying not everyone in the European Commission supports that particular bit of legislation.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.