The Department of Justice secured court orders to prevent Google from informing congressional staffers of the DOJ's efforts to monitor their communications, according to court documents.
Legal group Empower Oversight released the five court orders Monday after filing a Freedom of Information Act request for the records related to the DOJ's previously unknown attempts to monitor the communications of staffers conducting oversight of the department.
Empower Oversight founder Jason Foster was one of the staffers targeted by the DOJ's 2017 subpoena of communications, the group said in a late November FOIA request for records related to the DOJ's applications for the secrecy orders.
He pleaded guilty in December 2018 to one count of false statements and sentenced to two months in prison for lying to the FBI. For three years after Wolfe's prosecution, the DOJ secured additional court orders to hide the Google subpoenas from staffers.
The DOJ secured court orders from 2019-2021 preventing the release of the 2017 subpoena for Foster's records, Empower Oversight found.
The DOJ subpoena compelled Google to release names, addresses, telephone records, text messages and additional communications from Dec. 1, 2016 to May 1, 2017, Empower Oversight said in the FOIA request.
"The limited circumstances under which a court may issue an order under 2705(b) raises the question of whether the claims [the] DOJ made to the court were true and whether those claims actually support the orders."
No comments:
Post a Comment