Blog Posts

In a First, Government Acknowledges the Limits of Section 215 – Electronic Frontier Foundation

dcogcadmin | February 6, 2015

Following EFF’s victory in a four-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the government released an opinion (pdf), written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 2010, that concluded that Section 215—the provision of the Patriot Act the NSA relies on to collect millions of Americans’ phone records—does have a limit: census data.

The Commerce Department requested an OLC opinion on whether any provisions of the Patriot Act could override the privacy requirements of the Census Act, provisions which, as the opinion acknowledges, “have long provided assurances of confidentiality to” census participants…Read More>