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Court Denies EPIC's Rehearing Request, Awards Fees

Posted by Unknown on from the good-thing-I'm-on-the-no-fly-list dept.

OverTheGeicoE writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center posted a news release about the DC Circuit Court awarding them attorneys fees yesterday. They are to receive $21,482 in attorneys fees for an open government lawsuit against DHS that ultimately released documents about DHS's airport body scanner program. EPIC used these released documents in EPIC v. DHS, another lawsuit that attempts to end the use of airport body scanners. At the end of an e-mailed version of this news release (EPIC Alert 18.18, not yet posted on the Web), EPIC states that 'EPIC requested an en banc review of the court's decision not to suspend, but, on September 12, 2011, the court declined the request.' Is this the end of EPIC v. DHS, or does this simply open the door for an appeal to the Supreme Court?" The complete ruling (PDF) is available.

3 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. So what we need is... by nman64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...an EPIC WIN in the Supreme Court!

  2. No real surprise by dkleinsc · · Score: 3

    Nowadays, whenever somebody sues the government, particularly those agencies that deal with military or law enforcement, for breaking its own laws, the executive branch just says "National security requires we can't reveal the information that would allow us to defend this case" and the judiciary is happy to throw out the suit. This response seems to be true even if the information in question was previously on the front page of major newspaper, and the only reason the executive is claiming the "state secrets" privilege is because it's plainly guilty.

    It's not the fault of all federal judges, because all this kind of thing requires is 5 SCOTUS judges willing to go along with it.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  3. Re:No, no doors were opened in this ruling. by OverTheGeicoE · · Score: 4, Informative

    The opinion linked in the summary is not for the case seeking to suspend airport body scanners. The opinion linked here is for a case where EPIC tried to force DHS to release additional documents about body scanners. It does not address the suspension lawsuit at all. All we know about the suspension suit is that, according to information in an e-mail from EPIC, the request for a rehearing was denied.