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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

ACLU to feds: Your "hacking presents a unique threat to individual privacy"

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with Privacy International, a similar organization based in the United Kingdom, have now sued 11 federal agencies, demanding records about how those agencies engage in what is often called "lawful hacking."

The activist groups filed Freedom of Information Act requests to the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and nine others. None responded in a substantive way.

"Law enforcement use of hacking presents a unique threat to individual privacy," the ACLU argues in its lawsuit, which was filed Friday in federal court in New York state.

"Hacking can be used to obtain volumes of personal information about individuals that would never previously have been available to law enforcement."

[...] The FBI did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

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