Jonathan Nicholson covers Capitol Hill and campaigns for HuffPost. His Twitter is @JNicholsonInDC.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that’s been part of a broad coalition of pro-privacy groups worried about an anti-spying law that’s been used in the past to surveil Americans, sued the government Friday for allegedly withholding audit records on the program., accusing the FBI and the Justice Department of not coughing up information the think tank had previously filed for under the Freedom of Information Act.
“When the FBI stonewalls public records requests about a massive surveillance program that gobbles up billions of communications yearly — including yours and mine — it’s violating the law… A law its agents and managers are sworn to uphold,” said Cato senior fellow Patrick Eddington in an email to HuffPost.Every few years, there are fights over the renewal of FISA. Its advocates concede that the law allowed too broad a net to be cast on U.S.
In August, the FBI claimed that Cato’s FOIA request was “overly broad,” according to Friday’s lawsuit, which appeals that ruling and asks the court to force the government to give up the records. Eddington said the audit data would have potentially been useful to lawmakers debating whether to renew the law, but they never saw it.
“We filed this ‘follow FOIA’ lawsuit over the FISA Section 702 program to see whether or not the FBI’s stonewalling on related records in our prior suit was deliberate in order to ensure a winning vote for FISA reauthorization this year,” he said.By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners.
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