Administration's Secret Surveillance Legal Guidance Sought

The opinion is secret, too

In a brief filed on Friday, EFF continued its fight against secret surveillance law, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to order the release of a secret opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

The opinion was generated as part of a lengthy Inspector General investigation into the FBI's use of unconstitutional National Security Letters, so-called "exigent letters," and other illegal methods of obtaining customer records. The OLC's opinion provides the federal government with the authority to obtain private call-detail records in "certain circumstances," without any legal process or a qualifying emergency, and despite federal laws to the contrary. So far, the DOJ has refused to disclose what those circumstances are, and has even refused to disclose the statute on which the government bases its purported authority.