Meanwhile, court cases intended to bring more transparency to the NSA have also ground to a halt. The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court had ordered the government to conduct a declassification review of all secret opinions dealing with the government's secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but this week the FISA court granted the government's request to delay this declassification until after the shutdown ends.
A group of tech giants, including Google and Microsoft, petitioned the FISA court to allow them to publish general numbers of how many users are effected by FISA orders they receive. The government was able to delay this case as well, using the government shutdown as an excuse.
In addition, in both of EFF's Freedom of Information Act lawsuits pertaining to the FISA court and NSA, the government was granted delays until the shutdown was over.
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