FBI Surveilled Antiwar.com for Six Years Based on Clerical Error
The FBI monitored Antiwar.com, a prominent antiwar news website, for approximately six years beginning around 2004, based on a clerical error that confused the site's domain with a suspect's email address. A court later ordered the FBI to expunge the records, and the ACLU sued on behalf of editor Eric Garris.
Antiwar.com, an online news and commentary site founded in 1995 promoting non-interventionist foreign policy, discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that the FBI had maintained surveillance records on it and its editor Eric Garris for approximately six years. FBI documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California showed agents had opened a file around 2004, apparently after confusing the site's web domain with a suspect's email. Despite recognizing the error, monitoring continued for years. The ACLU filed suit under the Privacy Act, and in November 2013 a federal district court ordered the FBI to expunge certain records. On September 11, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the order in Garris v. FBI, No. 18-15416. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press noted the case illustrated how even inadvertent government surveillance of news organizations can persist and endanger sources.