The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was ordered to turn over documents
sought by current and former employees who claim they were illegally
spied on after reporting improper device approvals to Congress.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told the government to produce 4,000 pages by Aug. 24 and any remaining material by Sept. 10 after he agreed with the employees’ lawyers that documents about the agency’s surveillance of staff who worked on medical devices should be made available quickly.
“What you want to tell the public is why the FDA was doing this and how they were doing this,” Boasberg said to Stephen Kohn, one of the employees’ attorneys, during a hearing today in Washington.
The researchers filed a civil rights lawsuit in September accusing FDA officials of spying on staff members who told lawmakers the agency was improperly approving medical devices used to screen for cancer. Today’s ruling was in a related case seeking internal FDA documents through the Freedom of Information Act.
The allegations include the interception of e-mail from personal accounts sent across agency networks. About 80,000 pages of intercepted communications were inadvertently made public on the internet by a government contractor compiling data for probes into the spying by Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Marian Borum, an assistant U.S. Attorney representing the Health and Human Services Department, told Boasberg.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told the government to produce 4,000 pages by Aug. 24 and any remaining material by Sept. 10 after he agreed with the employees’ lawyers that documents about the agency’s surveillance of staff who worked on medical devices should be made available quickly.
“What you want to tell the public is why the FDA was doing this and how they were doing this,” Boasberg said to Stephen Kohn, one of the employees’ attorneys, during a hearing today in Washington.
The researchers filed a civil rights lawsuit in September accusing FDA officials of spying on staff members who told lawmakers the agency was improperly approving medical devices used to screen for cancer. Today’s ruling was in a related case seeking internal FDA documents through the Freedom of Information Act.
The allegations include the interception of e-mail from personal accounts sent across agency networks. About 80,000 pages of intercepted communications were inadvertently made public on the internet by a government contractor compiling data for probes into the spying by Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Marian Borum, an assistant U.S. Attorney representing the Health and Human Services Department, told Boasberg.
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