ACLU files FOIA suit over mass govt’s surveillance uses

ACLU: The Most Important Surveillance Order We Know Almost Nothing About by Alex Abdo:

Over the last seven months, we have learned an incredible amount about the government’s post-9/11 surveillance efforts. But there is a crucial gap in our basic understanding. We now know, for example, a good deal about how the government conducts surveillance that targets Americans, and about surveillance of foreigners that sweeps up Americans’ international communications when the actual surveillance takes place on U.S. soil (for example, from a Google facility in the United States). But we still know very little about Executive Order 12,333, which governs the NSA’s surveillance abroad — even when that surveillance sweeps up Americans’ communications.

To fill that gap, the ACLU, along with the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding that the government release basic information about its use of Executive Order 12,333 to conduct surveillance of Americans’ international communications.