Two weeks ago the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) succeeded through a FOIA request in compelling the Justice Department to release a 2011 FISA court opinion, which ruled significant parts of the NSA’s surveillance unconstitutional.
Today, another victory:
In a major victory in one of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, the Justice Department conceded yesterday that it will release hundreds of pages of documents, including FISA court opinions, related to the government’s secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the law the NSA has relied upon for years to mass collect the phone records of millions of innocent Americans.
Both the 2011 FISA court opinion and this latest set of documents are classified records that the government adamantly refused to make public, even under the pressure of FOIA requests, for years. EFF has some thoughts on the apparent change of heart:
For most of the duration of the lawsuit, the government fought tooth and nail to keep every page of its interpretations secret, even once arguing it should not even be compelled to release the number of pages that their opinions consisted of. It was not until the start of the release of documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the government’s position became untenable and the court ordered the government to begin the declassification review process.
In other news, the Guardian reported yesterday that President Obama, while in a joint press conference with Swedish prime minister Frederik Reinfeldt, “raised for the first time the prospect of new legislation to limit the powers of the NSA.”
The president’s language was more sympathetic towards the privacy camp than it has been over the past few months. Just because the US intelligence agencies could do something did not meant it should, Obama said, particularly if the US is being too intrusive in looking into the behaviour of other governments.
Technological changes meant the “risks of abuse are greater than they have been in the past”, he said.
Couple the above happenings with the historic, albeit just barely unsuccessful, vote in Congress in July for limiting the NSA’s surveillance capabilities which cut across party lines – and ask yourself, would any of this be happening if Edward Snowden hadn’t risked his life to blow the whistle on the surveillance state.