The New York Times filed a motion Monday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking it to unseal orders authorizing the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The motion comes after President Donald Trump last week authorized the release of a memo drafted by House Republicans that revealed DOJ lawyers sought and received orders from the court authorizing electronic surveillance on Page at least four times since October 2016. The Times' motion also asks the for the unsealing of the initial application materials and subsequent renewal application materials the Department of Justice used in seeking the orders.

The FISC operates in near total secrecy. According to the Times, no similar application materials have become public since the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. Records of FISC proceedings are classified, and the public rarely learns of the existence of specific warrants.

The newspaper is represented by its own legal department as well as a team of lawyers from the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School that includes Ballard Spahr senior counsel David Schulz.

In the motion, the lawyers argue there is “no longer any reason” for the court to keep materials related to Page sealed because of the “extent of information” about the materials revealed in the memo. The material could be released, the motion said, with “appropriate redactions.”

The Times also argued releasing the material “would serve the public interest.”

“Publication would contribute to an informed debate about the propriety of the government's FISA application, including whether the government abused its surveillance authority,” the motion said. “It would also enable the public to meaningfully evaluate and participate in the ongoing congressional debate.”

Republican lawmakers argue the memo showed grave abuses of the FISA system by DOJ lawyers. House Democrats are seeking to release their own memo, arguing the Republican version was cherry-picked to fit a certain narrative and omits key facts. Both the DOJ and the FBI opposed the release of the Republicans' memo.

The Times is not the only entity arguing Trump's authorization should compel disclosure of certain records. In a pending Freedom of Information Act case, lawyers representing USA Today journalist Brad Heath filed a notice Feb. 2, arguing Trump's authorization of the memo mitigates the DOJ's refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records sought.

Heath, represented by Mark Zaid and Bradley Moss of the Law Office of Mark S. Zaid, filed the lawsuit after Trump tweeted that former President Barack Obama authorized spying activities on his campaign. It seeks the disclosure of any application to the FISA court to collect information related to the Trump Organization, Trump's campaign or people associated with Trump, and any order approving that application.  

“The appropriateness of the government's categorical Glomar invocation in the present case cannot survive the official declassification and acknowledgment of the existence of FISA warrants by no less an authoritative source than the president himself,” that notice said.

Read more:

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