[Ghostavo]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/fbi-to-aclu-nope-we-wont-tell-you-how-when-or-why-we-track-you/

Back in August 2012, we reported on how the American Civil Liberties Union was compelling the FBI to fully disclose how it interprets the results of the United States v. Jones case—a unanimous Supreme Court decision establishing that law enforcement does not have the authority to put a warrantless GPS tracker on a suspect’s car.


As we reported then, other types of high-tech surveillance and monitoring by law enforcement continue on a nearly daily basis around the country. Cops are using everything from tap and trace, ping data, license plate surveillance, and other techniques as a way to keep tabs on suspects and innocent citizens without going through the threshold of a judicially-reviewed probable-cause-driven warrant.

Now, the ACLU has received a response to its query—with nothing. The FBI sent the ACLU back pages (PDF) upon pages (PDF) that are heavily redacted, providing zero insight into what this policy actually is.

I love how the second set of documents is a page indicating who it was from, to whom and the subject, followed by 53 entirely redacted pages.

[Luis Dias]

Well, I'll tell you the truth. The truth is [REDACTED]

[Kopachris]

Someone got tired of listening to the ACLU.

When I delete you maybe [REDACTED]

[MP-Ryan]

The FBI policy is probably legal advice from FBI's justice counsel, and therefore solicitor-client privileged... meaning not subject to access to information requests.

[NGTM-1R]

The FBI policy is probably legal advice from FBI's justice counsel, and therefore solicitor-client privileged... meaning not subject to access to information requests.

This. Why would you even ask?

[redsniper]

Maybe... they.... didn't realize?

[MP-Ryan]

Maybe... they.... didn't realize?

The ACLU is practically an organization staffed entirely by lawyers.  If they didn't know, they should have.

[BlueFlames]

The FBI policy is probably legal advice from FBI's justice counsel, and therefore solicitor-client privileged... meaning not subject to access to information requests.

This. Why would you even ask?

It's called a fishing expedition.  You ask for the information and hope that you're corresponding with someone too stupid to know that it needs to be redacted.  Most of the time, you're not that lucky, but once in a great while, you're accidentally given something useful.  There's nothing lost in making the request (except maybe the cost of a postage stamp and the time to write a brief letter), and if you don't make that request, then you don't even have that slim chance of getting the information that you're seeking.

That's why you ask, even when you know that the answer is supposed to be 100+ blacked-out pages.