Empower Oversight has announced that it is appealing a District Court decision that permits the Justice Department to withhold the “factual basis” for subpoenas targeting activity logs from the personal phone and email accounts of members of Congress and attorneys for congressional committees from both parties.
“Unfortunately, the findings by the District Court failed to answer our key questions about the Justice Department’s truthfulness in its filings—such as whether they explained to the court that these subpoenas were for members of Congress and their attorneys,” said Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt in a statement. “Only transparency can reveal how the DOJ got these subpoenas approved by the court —and then kept at bay any legitimate oversight of the serious constitutional separation of powers issues by keeping the subpoenas secret for six years.”
On August 23, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia allowed Empower Oversight to intervene in the case, the organization explained in a press release. Boasberg ruled that parts of two DOJ applications for “nondisclosure orders” should be unsealed, but after privately reviewing the DOJ’s applications and renewals—which forced Google to keep the subpoenas secret for six years—he allowed most of the documents to remain concealed without providing a full explanation.
The judge also permitted the DOJ to “entirely redact the government’s factual claims in the applications that supposedly justified the need for secrecy,” Empower Oversight said.
