Washington plans to release details of secret spy court

SAN FRANCISCO: The Obama administration is releasing hundreds of previously classified documents detailing activities of the country’s long-secret spy court that authorizes domestic surveillance programs.
In a court filing last week, the US Department of Justice said it will turn over the documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation by Tuesday. EFF officials said they will upload the documents to the civil liberty group’s website later Tuesday.
The DOJ told a federal judge last week it was turning over the documents to partially settle a lawsuit EFF filed for access to court orders, administration memos and other information government officials relied on to design and implement a domestic surveillance program.
The group’s lawsuit languished for years until former intelligence worker Edward Snowden released detailed information about the domestic surveillance program this year. That reignited public debate and prompted widespread calls for more public information about the surveillance programs and the secret federal court that authorizes them.
EFF lawyers called the Snowden disclosure a “tipping point.”
Steven Aftergood, head of a project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said he hopes the documents will show how the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court operates. The surveillance court, known as FISC, was established in 1978 to oversee domestic surveillance operations. The court’s proceedings are conducted behind closed doors, and all its rulings are considered classified. Up until now, only a few of the court’s opinions have been made public.
The DOJ said in a court filing last week that it would turn over to EFF “orders and opinions of the FISC issued from Jan. 1, 2004, to June 6, 2011, that contain a significant legal interpretation of the government’s authority or use of its authority under” a section of the US Patriot Act.
The section of the act allows the government to seize a wide range of documents. It requires the government to show that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the records are relevant to an investigation intended to “protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”
DOJ lawyers are also reviewing a second batch of documents for declassification by Oct. 31.