Prompted by EFF Lawsuit, FBI (Partially) Releases Domestic Surveillance Guidelines

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Prompted by EFF Lawsuit, FBI (Partially) Releases Domestic Surveillance Guidelines | Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released a heavily censored version of its controversial Domestic Investigations and Operations Guidelines (DIOG), which became effective on December 1, 2008. EFF requested public disclosure of the guidelines under the Freedom of Information Act in December and, after more than six months passed with no response, we filed suit against the Department of Justice in June 2009. In response to the lawsuit, the Bureau agreed to answer EFF's disclosure request no later than October 13, and the court ordered it to do so. The FBI’s partial release of the DIOG complies with the court's order to respond to our request.

The 258-page document implements the Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations, the most recent version of which was issued late last year by former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey. For 33 years, the FBI's domestic surveillance activities have been conducted according to a set of guidelines promulgated and revised by successive Attorneys General. Initially crafted by Edward Levi in 1976, the first set of guidelines were put into place to curb the invasive techniques of the FBI's Counterintelligence Programs (“COINTELPRO”) of the 1960s and 1970s.