[Infowarrior] - Judge Walton Catches The DOJ Withholding Info About NSA Metadata Lawsuits

[Richard Forno]

Judge Walton Catches The DOJ Withholding Info About NSA Metadata Lawsuits

from the I-may-actually-miss-this-guy-once-he's-gone dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140321/12060026649/judge-walton-catches-doj-withholding-info-about-nsa-metadata-lawsuits.shtml

Another FISC opinion and order has just been released dealing with the NSA's retention of metadata that may be used as evidence in some ongoing lawsuits against the government. The DOJ had originally asked to hold onto the pertinent data past the five-year expiration date because of these pending lawsuits. This request was shot down by FISC judge Reggie Walton, who stated that holding Americans' data past the disposal date put the surveillance programs on shaky Constitutional grounds, while also pointing out that the government's arguments relied on caselaw dealing with the retention of corporate documents, something which clearly wasn't in the same league as data collected on Americans. 

Shortly thereafter, a federal court handling two lawsuits (Jewel v. NSA [this is an EFF lawsuit originally filed in 2008], First Unitarian Church v. NSA) centered on NSA domestic surveillance issued a temporary restraining order on the destruction of relevant metadata. This was brought about by the DOJ's announcement that it would begin destroying the relevant data for these two cases based on Walton's February order. 

This is where the DOJ starts looking very shady, according to Judge Walton's recounting of the events.

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This latest order from Judge Walton shows that the government wants to destroy data that might be used as evidence. There was some back-and-forth previous to this, but the DOJ probably had a good idea what Judge Walton would say back in February when it showed up to ask to hold on to domestic surveillance records indefinitely, deploying civil litigation guidelines and common law requirements as its only rhetorical weapons. Walton refused and the DOJ went happily off to tell plaintiffs that the FISA court had overridden their existing preservation orders. If the plaintiffs hadn't asked for a temporary restraining order, it might have gotten away with it.


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