EFF Sues for Information on Electronic Surveillance Programs
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued DoJ for the release of information about electronic surveillance tools that the group said the FBI has “spent millions of dollars developing.” The lawsuit, in the U.S. Dist. Court, D.C. is the first in the EFF’s FOIA Litigation for Accountable Govt. (FLAG) Project, whose stated purpose is exposing the govt.’s expanded use of new technologies to “invade Americans’ privacy.” The technologies in this case are DCS-3000 and Red Hook, both used for electronic signal interception. EFF accused the FBI of having “wrongfully withheld” information on their use.
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The DCS-3000 program comes out of the FBI’s Carnivore monitoring system, which became a cause celebre after a 2000 Wall Street Journal article. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests revealed that the program wasn’t used to conduct Internet surveillance 2002-2003, but EFF said the FBI wouldn’t respond to a FOIA request for 2 CALEA-specific progeny of the program: DCS-3000, a wireless interceptor that DoJ’s inspector general said the FBI had spent $10 million on; and Red Hook, a $1.5 million voice and data call interceptor.
EFF sought the information because of the DoJ report’s description of the systems’ purpose as to “intercept personal communication services delivered via emerging digital technologies” and its statement that they're being deployed “as carriers continue to introduce new features and services.” EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann said the privacy group filed the first FOIA request in Aug. because “recent allegations of domestic spying by the U.S. government already have both lawmakers and the general public up in arms.” She said Americans “have a right to know” whether the FBI is using the programs to monitor their electronic communications. EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel, FLAG Project dir., said the govt.’s refusal to release details on DCS-3000 and Red Hook is part of a larger pattern. “We have recently seen numerous instances where federal agencies have sought to conceal surveillance activities that raise serious legal issues,” he said.
DoJ had no comment by our deadline.