Empower Oversight appeals court decision allowing DOJ to hide justification for 'spying on Congress'

Empower Oversight announced it is appealing a U.S. District Court decision that allowed the Department of Justice to hide its "factual basis" for the subpoenas of activity logs of "personal phone and email accounts of members of Congress and attorneys for congressional committees" from both political 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," Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt said in a statement. 

"Only transparency can reveal how 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," he added.  

A motion from Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Aug. 23 allowed Empower Oversight to intervene in the case, the organization explained in a news release.

Boasberg ruled that two of DOJ’s applications for "nondisclosure orders" should be partly unsealed. He privately reviewed DOJ’s "applications and renewals that forced Google to keep the subpoenas secret for six years" and permitted DOJ to keep most of them private without providing a full explanation. 

He permitted DOJ to "entirely redact the government’s factual claims in the applications that supposedly justified the need for secrecy,"  Empower Oversight said.