Resource: ACLU V. DOJ: FOIA Lawsuit Seeking Information on Federal Agencies’ Surveillance of Social Media

In May 2018, the ACLU submitted FOIA requests to seven federal agencies that conduct surveillance of social media users and speech: the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Customs & Border Protection; U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services; and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement. Those agencies failed to produce any documents in response to the request. In January 2019, we filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to demand that the agencies turn over documents about how the government is collecting and analyzing social media content, the policies that govern this surveillance, and the tools agencies use, including algorithmic surveillance and machine-learning techniques.