A nonprofit government watchdog is seeking a federal judge to reveal illegal surveillance of Capitol Hill staffers.
A nonprofit watchdog group filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court to compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release documents regarding the government’s surveillance of congressional staff investigators.
The group had previously submitted five Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for DOJ records related to surveillance that began in 2016. Despite acknowledging the requests, the DOJ did not provide the documents.
The surveillance was conducted through government demands on Google and other internet service providers for copies of correspondence and related documents by multiple congressional investigators. The court filing includes copies of subpoenas issued by the DOJ to Google and other service providers for a wide range of records.
The Empower Oversight group, which brought the lawsuit, is a nonprofit foundation led by two veteran congressional investigators, Tristan Leavitt and Jason Foster. The DOJ sought to prevent internet firms from informing the staffers under surveillance. The group opposed this and the DOJ’s motions for nondisclosure orders.
In a filing on Tuesday, it was revealed that Foster’s family’s phones and his official work phone at the U.S. Senate were under surveillance by Google in 2017. Other congressional staffers from both parties were also included in the surveillance.
The surveillance compromised the anonymity of DOJ whistleblowers cooperating with Congress to expose government waste and fraud. An amicus brief in support of unsealing the documents was filed by the Government Accountability Project.
The lawsuit brings to mind a 2014 incident where then-CIA Director John Brennan apologized for the agency’s illegal surveillance of Senate staffers. The CIA surveillance involved unauthorized searches of Senate investigative staffers’ official computers. Please rewrite this sentence.
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