Excerpt:
Much of the information collected by the FBI about its surveillance of several Southern California Muslim activists and organizations will remain sealed despite litigation from those subjected to the monitoring, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.
The litigation stems from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in 2006 by 11 groups and individuals who wanted to see "information reflecting any investigation or surveillance of them by the government," the Ninth Circuit ruling said.
The FBI provided a handful of heavily redacted pages just more than a year later to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and to Hussam Ayloush, its Los Angeles office director. The 11 then sued, demanding to see more. After that, the FBI found more than 100 more pages of relevant material. But they were heavily redacted and considered as "outside the scope" of the FOIA request.