EFF Sues To Find Out if FISA Orders Used To Force Companies To Help Decrypt

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued DOJ to find out whether the government used "secret orders" to compel technology companies to decrypt the private communications of customers, after two EFF Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals went denied or unanswered. EFF, which filed the lawsuit Tuesday, said the practice could jeopardize the security of devices used by millions of people. The federal government has sought assistance from technology companies, notably Apple in the San Bernardino, California, mass shooting case and others (see 1603290059), through legal challenges in traditional federal courts, EFF said. But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "allows the government to seek technical assistance from third parties with respect to any application it seeks or order or opinion it receives from the" Foreign Intelligence Service Court (FISC), the suit said. The privacy group wants to know how much FISA has been used and how much FISC has forced companies to help the government. “If the government is obtaining FISC orders to force a company to build backdoors or decrypt their users’ communications, the public has a right to know about those secret demands to compromise people’s phones and computers,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo in a news release. EFF filed a FOIA request with DOJ's National Security Division Oct. 8, and Justice responded that it hadn't found any documents except for "two items of potentially responsive correspondence" that were determined to be exempt from FOIA. EFF filed an administrative appeal Jan. 22, saying DOJ "improperly withheld records under FOIA." That was denied April 4. EFF filed another FOIA request March 7, which DOJ hasn't responded to, prompting the suit. Justice declined to comment Wednesday.