Free Republic

A whistleblower organization has initiated a court action to force the Department of Justice to disclose why it spied on congressional staff, setting up a landmark legal battle on an issue that has rankled both Republicans and Democrats.Last fall, several current and former congressional oversight staff were belatedly informed that the Justice Department seized phone and email records in 2017 in an internal investigation, raising concerns about separation of powers between two branches of government.Jason Foster, who is now the founder and chair of Empower Oversight, the group which sued in court this week to unseal the court documents in...

‘[O]ne email exchange occurring shortly before Secretary Clinton joined the Department [of State] that demonstrated a reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.’ – Office of Inspector General Report (Washington DC)—Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain records regarding an email exchange that took place before former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took office citing a “reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.” The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper.</p> <p>The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.</p>