|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]()
|
![]() |
ACLU Demands Secret U.S. Court Reveal Secret U.S. LawsThe American Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion to reveal the secret court opinions with "novel or significant interpretations" of surveillance law, in a renewed push for government transparency. The motion, filed Wednesday by the ACLU and Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, asks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, which rules on intelligence gathering activities in secret, to release 23 classified decisions it made between 9/11 and the passage of the USA Freedom Act in June 2015. ACLU National Security Project staff attorney Patrick Toomey says the opinions are part of a "much larger collection of hidden rulings on all sorts of government surveillance activities that affect the privacy rights of Americans." Among them is the court order that the government used to direct Yahoo! to secretly scan its users' e-mails for "a specific set of characters." Toomey writes: These court rulings are essential for the public to understand how federal laws are being construed and implemented. They also show how constitutional protections for personal privacy and expressive activities are being enforced by the courts. In other words, access to these opinions is necessary for the public to properly oversee their government. Although the USA Freedom Act requires the release of novel FISA court opinions on surveillance law, the government maintains that the rule does not apply retroactively - thereby protecting the panel from publishing many of its post-9/11 opinions, which helped create an "unprecedented buildup" of secret surveillance laws. Even after National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the scope of mass surveillance in 2013, sparking widespread outcry, dozens of rulings on spying operations remain hidden from the public eye, which stymies efforts to keep the government accountable, civil liberties advocates say. "These rulings are necessary to inform the public about the scope of the government's surveillance powers today," the ACLU's motion states. Toomey writes that the rulings helped influence a number of novel spying activities, including:
Without these rulings being made public, "it simply isn't possible to understand the government's claimed authority to conduct surveillance," Toomey writes. As he told The Intercept on Wednesday, "The people of this country can't hold the government accountable for its surveillance activities unless they know what our laws allow. These secret court opinions define the limits of the government's spying powers. Their disclosure is essential for meaningful public oversight in our democracy." This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. - Previously: * Obama Worst FOIA President Ever. * How Obama Undermined FOIA Reforms. * Obama's War On Truth And Transparency. * Only Nixon Harmed A Free Press More Than Obama. * Why Reporters In The U.S. Now Need Protection. * Technologists Turn On Obama. * EFF Wins FOIA Battle Over Secret Legal Opinions On Government Spying. * Obama: No Questions, Please! * Sunlight Wins 13 Years Of Federal Contract Data. * Workshop On Government's Openness Is Closed To Public. * Government Could Hide Existence Of Records Under FOIA Rule Proposal. * Trying (And Trying) To Get Records From The 'Most Transparent Administration' Ever. * Delayed, Denied, Dismissed: Failures On The FOIA Front. * SPJ, Again: Transparency Has Gotten Worse Under Obama. * Obama Snags General In Book Leak. * Obama's New Era Of Secret Law. - Posted on October 21, 2016 |
![]() |
![]()
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() © 2006 - 2022, The Beachwood Media Company |