According to the 2011 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Report the Justice Department submitted 1,745 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a 10.5% increase over 2010. Of the 1,745 FISA search applications, 1,676 concerned electronic surveillance. The FISA court did not deny any applications, though it did modify 30 applications. Also in 2011, the FBI made 16,511 National Security Letter requests for information pertaining to 7,201 different U.S. persons. This is a substantial decrease from the 24,287 national security letter requests concerning 14,212 U.S. persons in 2010. The annual report on FISA, released by the Department of Justice, is far less extensive than the annual wiretap report, produced by the Administrative Office of the US Courts. EPIC has recommended greater accountability for the FISA Court. For more information, see: EPIC: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court Orders 1979-2011 and EPIC: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General has completed an investigation into the effectiveness of the body scanner program as deployed in airports as a primary passenger screening system. The unclassified summary of the report notes that several vulnerabilities were found in the program, which has already cost more than $87 million. The full report consists of "Sensitive Security Information" (SSI) and will not be released to the public, according to the Inspector General. EPIC has challenged the SSI designation, arguing that it is an improper standard for classification. The Government Accountability Office, technical experts, Members of Congress, and bloggers have also questioned the effectiveness of the devices. In a federal lawsuit, EPIC challenged the body scanner program, calling it "invasive, unlawful, and ineffective." For more information, see EPIC v. DHS (Suspension of body scanners).
Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the Social Networking Online Protection Act, a bill that would prohibit employers, colleges, universities, and K-12 schools from seeking usernames or passwords for the social media accounts of employees or students. Similar legislation was introduced in California. Maryland became the first state to ban employers from asking employees or applicants for social networking passwords. Senators Blumenthal and Schumer have asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the practice. For more information, see EPIC: Workplace Privacy and EPIC: Facebook Privacy.
In response to several demands from Congress, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) has released a long-delayed report with recommendations to improve the administration of the Freedom of Information Act. The report addresses several FOIA processing issues, but doesn't examine the significant issue of delays in FOIA processing and efforts by agencies - such as the Department of Justice - to create new obstacles for FOIA requestors. And OGIS did not address EPIC's pending request to determine whether DHS's practice of vetting FOIA requests by political appointees is permissible. For more information, see EPIC: Open Government.
Shortly after EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Communications Commission for the unredacted version of its report on Google Spy-Fi, Google has released a mostly unredacted version of the report. The FCC Report undercuts the company's prior statements that a rogue engineer was responsible for the payload data collection. Instead, it indicates that Google intentionally intercepted payload data for business purposes and that many supervisors and engineers within the company reviewed the code and the design documents associated with the project. EPIC will continue to press for more details on the investigation through FOIA requests to the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. For more information see EPIC: Investigations of Google Street View.
EPIC has appealed a denial of a Freedom of Information Act request that sought records concerning the sale of surveillance technology by U.S. companies to repressive regimes like Syria and Yemen. "The failure to adequately justify the claim that no segregable portions of records exist violates FOIA, especially given the past practice of releasing aggregate data in response to substantially similar requests," the appeal states. EPIC also filed a follow-up request to the Department of Commerce seeking records related to the agency's investigation of companies like Blue Coat Systems, which sold surveillance devices to Syria. Recently, President Obama signed an executive order authorizing U.S. officials to impose sanctions against persons involved in the use of information and communications technology to facilitate human rights abuses in Syria and Iran. For more information, see EPIC: Freedom of Information Act.
EPIC has submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Justice for documents related to the agency's investigation of Google Street View and possible violations of federal wiretap laws. In an April 26, 2012 letter to the FCC In a related matter, Google claimed that the Department of Justice had "conducted and long ago completed its own thorough examination of the facts" related to the Google Street View matter. EPIC had asked the Justice Department to pursuer the matter. EPIC also has a pending FOIA request for the FCC's heavily redacted report on the Google Street View investigation. For more information see EPIC: Investigations of Google Street View.
The House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Information Protection Act ("CISPA"), a cybersecurity bill that allows the government to obtain detailed information about Internet users from the private sector. The bill preempts established privacy protections in other federal laws and opens the door for increased surveillance of individuals in the United States. The bill also creates a new Freedom of Information Act exemption, which will reduce government transparency and accountability. Earlier this year, EPIC said in a statement to the Senate that the Freedom of Information Act provides the public important information about network security, and warned that the National Security Agency has become a “black hole” for public information about cybersecurity. For more information, see EPIC: Cybersecurity and EPIC: EPIC v. NSA (FOIA for NSA Cybersecurity Authority), and EPIC: EPIC v. NSA (FOIA for Google/NSA Relatioship).
EPIC has filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for documents related to the Government's use of cell phone tracking technology, known as "Sting Ray.".For more than 15 years the FBI has used cell-site simulator technology to track the location of a cell phones and other communications devices. Cell-site simulators act like a fake cell towers and can be used to monitor and track cell phone users even when the device is not in use. The technique also tracks all individuals in a region, irregardless of whether they are the suspect in an investigation. Government attorneys have recently fought against the discovery of documents related to the use of these devices. In February 2012, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI, but so far the agency has not responded or disclosed any documents as required by law. EPIC has recently filed amicus curiae briefs in Supreme Court, and Federal Court cases related to Government location tracking. For more information see: EPIC: Locational Privacy, EPIC: US v. Jones and EPIC: In re US Application for Historic Cell-Site Location Information.
