The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans’ telephone records without any legal process or oversight.
A report released last year by the DOJ’s own Inspector General revealed how the FBI, in defending its past violations of the Electronic Privacy Communications Act (ECPA), had come up with a new legal argument to justify secret, unchecked access to private telephone records. According to the report, the DOJ’s Office of the Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a legal opinion agreeing with the FBI’s theory. That legal opinion is the target of the FOIA lawsuit filed Thursday.
Read more on EFF.