WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
In a lawsuit against AT&T, Hagens Berman represents Nathan Wade, an attorney who has served as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Georgia’s investigation and prosecution of unlawful interference in the state’s 2020 presidential election. The lawsuit accuses telecom giant AT&T of violating Mr. Wade’s privacy and jeopardizing his wellbeing and public safety when it made public nearly 14,000 pages of Mr. Wade’s cell phone data without his knowledge or consent and without any privacy redactions or protections in place to prevent further dissemination of the highly sensitive records. AT&T, knowing that Mr. Wade was a prosecutor, disclosed 12 months of call and texts logs and location data to the criminal defendants Mr. Wade was prosecuting and their attorneys—who subsequently shared those records with the media and publicly filed them, allowing Mr. Wade’s sensitive personal information to spread rapidly on the internet. The impact of AT&T’s egregious breach was immediate: Hate mail laced with explicit and racist threats filled Mr. Wade’s mailbox, and strangers congregated outside his home at all hours.
A PROSECUTOR’S PRIVACY RIGHTS
In 2021, the Fulton County’s District Attorney’s Office asked Mr. Wade to lead an unprecedented investigation into and criminal prosecution of efforts to overturn the state’s lawful 2020 presidential election. Mr. Wade “agreed to put aside his successful private law practice and his work as a judge to be the public face and the legal engine behind the State’s historic prosecution, which concerned some of the most famous politicians in the country,” the lawsuit states.
Mr. Wade did not expect, and could not have expected, that while taking on this important role, AT&T would violate state and federal law, as well as its own promises to its users, and produce nearly 14,000 pages of his private data to the criminal defendants he was prosecuting. Mr. Wade had specifically enrolled in AT&T’s FirstNet program, an AT&T mobile service touting superior privacy and security for which he qualified as a state prosecutor.
ABOUT THE PRIVACY LAWSUIT AGAINST AT&T
According to the lawsuit, less than 3 days after AT&T received a secret subpoena issued by a personal investigator hired by Mr. Trump, the company produced 12 months of Mr. Wade’s location data and call and text records to counsel for the criminal defendants Mr. Wade was prosecuting on behalf of the state. The details in these records were breathtaking and showed:
- every call Mr. Wade made or received,
- every text message he sent or received,
- his precise location during each and every one of those contacts,
- where Mr. Wade lived,
- where he received medical care or attended religious services,
- his daily routines,
- phone numbers of his children and his associates.
“They allowed the criminal defendants that Mr. Wade had agreed to prosecute on behalf of the State to ascertain nearly every detail about his personal life—and many confidential details about the ongoing prosecution,” the lawsuit states. “Indeed, the Supreme Court has described these types of cell phone location records as ‘hold[ing] for many Americans the ‘privacies of life.’”
CUSTOMERS’ RIGHT TO PRIVACY
AT&T customers have a right to privacy and the protection of their personal information. According to the lawsuit, AT&T’s breach of Mr. Wade’s privacy violated the Federal Communications Act, which requires AT&T to safeguard user data and is designed to prevent exactly this type of dangerous breach. AT&T’s conduct also violated Georgia state law, including the constitutional right to privacy and the privacy laws prohibiting the intrusion upon Mr. Wade’s seclusion and the public disclosure of private facts found in his cell phone data. AT&T’s egregious failure to take even basic steps to protect Mr. Wade also constitutes gross negligence under Georgia law.
WHY IS THIS CASE IMPORTANT?
In addition to the harm caused to a public servant like Mr. Wade, who was serving in his public capacity at the time of AT&T’s breaches, AT&T’s actions are a grave threat to public safety. Imagine the next case: Will AT&T honor a subpoena for the records of the prosecutor in a drug cartel case, such that violent defendants can obtain the names, locations and contact information of the prosecutor and her family and friends—placing them in grave danger as a result?
The breach of prosecutor data also reveals the identity of informants and witnesses upon which the government relies to prosecute their cases. AT&T breach did not just threaten an individual prosecutor; it’s a threat to public safety and law and order. This is what’s at stake in this case: protecting frontline prosecutors and the public they serve.
