Cybersecurity

Civil liberties group suing intelligence office for Russia report

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking the release of a classified report on Russian interference in the election. 

The group filed a similar lawsuit against the FBI last week.

The new suit seeks the “complete ODNI Assessment of the Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential election,” which the group had requested under the Freedom of Information Act on January 9.

{mosads} By statute, ODNI would have had 10 days to provide the documents or provide a determination that the documents needed to remain private. 

“The release of this assessment is necessary for the public to evaluate the [intelligence community] response to the Russian interference, assess threats to American democratic institutions, and to ensure accountability for these foreign cyber attacks,” EPIC’s complaint reads. 

ODNI released a public version of the report scrubbed of classified information. EPIC argues that the cleansed report does not adequately describe the scope of the attacks, including which systems were attacked and whether voter records were retained during attacks on elections committees.