Lawsuit Contests Government Stonewalling over 2016 Election Spying

Court Sets Sept. 15 for Oral Arguments in Appeal

Oral arguments in a federal lawsuit against six government agencies over their stonewalling about “unmasking” and surveillance of the 2016 presidential campaign and transition has been set for September 15.
 
The general counsel of the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability had filed the appeal in January before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The lawsuit is challenging the refusal of the agencies to respond to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking information on the surveillance of campaign and transition officials in the 2016 election.

The FOIA requests filed with the Department of Justice, the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, Department of State and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sought records regarding the unmasking and “upstreaming,” or the interception of internet communications, of people, including Members of Congress, who were affiliated with the Trump campaign and transition.
 
The agencies responded by issuing “Glomar” responses that refuse to confirm or deny the existence of such records.

Gene Schaerr, PPSA general counsel, who filed the appeal, said: “We ask the court to understand that judicial doctrine is being distorted into a cover-up of alarming misbehavior by the U.S. intelligence community. Americans deserve to know if our government has used its sweeping surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as a political weapon wielded against the campaign and presidential transition team of an opposing party.

“However you feel about the candidate in question, Donald Trump, what was done to him in 2016 can be done by an administration of either party in a future election,” Schaerr said.