In a fractured ruling regarding government transparency and national security, a federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice to renew its search for records related to animal rights activism and “domestic terrorism” investigations, rejecting the FBI’s claim that looking harder would be too difficult.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton issued a split decision in Shapiro v. Department of Justice, handing a partial victory to researcher Ryan Noah Shapiro. While the court upheld the FBI’s right to keep certain sensitive surveillance techniques and foreign intelligence sources secret, it sharply rebuked the Bureau for failing to conduct adequate searches for documents it seemingly lost or refused to look for.
At the center of the dispute is Shapiro’s quest for documents regarding specific FBI file classifications, including those labeled “66F-HQ-1328110,” which relate to domestic terrorism administrative records.
The FBI initially conducted an index search but refused to perform a full-text search of its Electronic Case File system, arguing that doing so for the timeframe requested would be “unduly burdensome” and yield insignificant results.
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Judge Walton was unpersuaded. In his opinion, he noted that the FBI failed to provide the “detailed explanation” required to prove that running a text search would actually break the bank or the clock. Without hard numbers on the time and expense involved, the court refused to let the agency off the hook, ordering them to either run the search or prove why they can’t.
The Case of the Missing Serials
The ruling also highlighted significant gaps in the FBI’s record-keeping regarding the requested files. Shapiro pointed out that the Bureau’s index of documents appeared to be missing approximately 117 serialized records within the specific case file.
The FBI argued that chasing down these “missing serials”—which may have been cross-filed into other pending cases—would force them to chase “endless leads.” Walton rejected this, noting that the agency offered no explanation for why these documents weren’t found in the initial sweep. The court ordered the FBI to conduct additional searches or explain exactly why those specific records vanished from the search results.
Surveillance Secrets Stay Hidden
While the court pressed the DOJ for better searches, it sided with the government on several key secrecy provisions. Judge Walton ruled that the FBI properly withheld information regarding:
- Computer Forensics: Reports generated by the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) remain under seal. The court agreed that revealing the software and techniques used to analyze seized digital media could help criminals develop technology to evade detection.
- Foreign Liaisons: Information provided by foreign government agencies regarding “extremist activities” was protected. The court accepted the FBI’s argument that revealing which nations share data on animal rights or eco-terrorism subjects could lead to violent reprisals against those nations.
- Surveillance Targets: The judge upheld the use of Exemption 7(E) to protect the specific targets, locations, and types of devices used in surveillance operations, accepting the “mosaic theory” that even small details could help bad actors reconstruct the FBI’s “surveillance playbook.”
Investigative Focus
The lawsuit also touched on the scope of FBI investigations. The Bureau withheld hundreds of pages to protect the “investigative focus” of its operations. Shapiro challenged redactions in documents that he suspected related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, arguing there was no harm in revealing that the attacks were investigated as terrorism.
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The FBI corrected the record, stating the documents were not about 9/11 but involved interconnected investigations where revealing the scope would tip off criminals to the Bureau’s strategy. Judge Walton accepted the FBI’s logic, allowing those specific redactions to stand.
The case now returns to the FBI, which must process the “unduly burdensome” text searches and account for the missing files, or return to the court with a much more detailed reason why they can’t.
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