Anonymous + general hacktivists 2009-2018 (Department of Justice, United States Marshals)
It is a clone of this request.
| Tracking # |
2019USMS33878 |
| Multi Request | Anonymous + general hacktivists 2009-2018 |
| Submitted | May 29, 2019 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Emma North-Best
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
Documents mentioning or relating to Anonymous (the hacker movement/collective, see below) or hacktivism (defined as hacking as a form of protest and/or activism) generated between 1 January 2009 and 1 January 2019, including but not limited to:
* Internal reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating to Anonymous or hacktivism
* Reports from the appropriate IT (Information Technology) or computer offices regarding possible cyber attacks by Anonymous or other hacktivists
* Reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating to or mentioning Anonymous or hacktivism sent to or received from any federal law enforcement or intelligence agencies or any fusion center
* Incident reports investigating possible hacking activity falling within the office's jurisdiction and allegedly carried out by members of Anonymous or other hacktivist groups
* Materials generated as a result of any suspected or actual compromise, breach or "dox" (revealing of personal or private information) by Anonymous or other hacktivists
Anonymous has been described by government agencies as a non-hierarchical hacktivist collective, Anonymous uses hacking (and arguably cracking) techniques to register political protest in campaigns known as “#ops.” Best known for their distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks, past activities have included attacks against the Church of Scientology; Visa, Paypal, and others who withdrew their services from WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange after that group began releasing war documents; #OpTunisia and others purporting to support the Arab Spring; and a campaign that brought down the website of the Westboro Baptist Church. #Ops are usually marked with the release of a video of a reader in a Guy Fawkes mask using a computer generated voice. See attached for additional background information.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Emma Best
From: Department of Justice, United States Marshals
An acknowledgement letter, stating the request is being processed.
From: Department of Justice, United States Marshals
An acknowledgement letter, stating the request is being processed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following request, copied below. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Department of Justice, United States Marshals
Dear Ms. Best; On or about June 4,2019, you submitted a FOIA request to the United States Marshals Service (USMS)for the following documents: Documents mentioning or relating to Anonymous (the hackermovement/collective, see below) or hacktivism (defined as hacking as a form ofprotest and/or activism) generated between 1 January 2009 and 1 January 2019,including but not limited to: * Internal reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating toAnonymous or hacktivism * Reports from the appropriate IT (Information Technology) or computeroffices regarding possible cyber attacks by Anonymous or other hacktivists * Reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating to or mentioningAnonymous or hacktivism sent to or received from any federal law enforcement orintelligence agencies or any fusion center * Incident reports investigating possible hacking activity fallingwithin the office's jurisdiction and allegedly carried out by members ofAnonymous or other hacktivist groups * Materials generated as a result of any suspected or actualcompromise, breach or "dox" (revealing of personal or privateinformation) by Anonymous or other hacktivists (Date Range for Record Search:From 1/1/2009 To 1/1/2019) While the USMS iscontinuing to process your request, our efforts to substantively respond to themany Freedom of Information and Privacy Act requests pending action by thisService and our limited personnel resources have prevented a final response toyour request. So that we may moreeffectively utilize our limited resources, please advise regarding yourcontinued interest in obtaining records responsive to your request. If you arestill interested in receiving the documents responsive to this request shouldthey exist, please either respond to this email or mail your affirmative replyto: U.S. Marshals Service, FOI/PA, Office of General Counsel, CG-3, 15th Floor,Washington, DC 20530. Should we not hearfrom you within 30 days of the date of this letter, we will be forced to closeyour request due to not being responsive. Your attention tothis matter is appreciated. USMS FOIA
From: Emma North-Best
Yes, I am still interested in the request.
From: Department of Justice, United States Marshals
Dear Requestor; The USMS is in receipt of your FOIA Request Number2021-USMS-362433 for the following information:
"FOIA 2019USMS33878:Documents mentioning or relating to Anonymous (the hacker movement/collective, see below) or hacktivism (defined as hacking as a form of protest and/or activism) generated between 1 January 2009 and 1 January 2019, including but not limited to:* Internal reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating to Anonymous or hacktivism* Reports from the appropriate IT (Information Technology) or computer offices regarding possible cyber attacks by Anonymous or other hacktivists* Reports, bulletins, warnings and alerts relating to or mentioning Anonymous or hacktivism sent to or received from any federal law enforcement or intelligence agencies or any fusion center* Incident reports investigating possible hacking activity falling within the office's jurisdiction and allegedly carried out by members of Anonymous or other hacktivist groups* Materials generated as a result of any suspected or actual compromise, breach or "dox" (revealing of personal or private information) by Anonymous or other hacktivists (Date Range for Record Search: From 1/1/2009 To 1/1/2019)."
The USMS Information Technology Division has completed its searches for responsive records and located 583,379 documents, which this office was able to remove all the duplicates of, bringing the count down to 73,233 emails and 130,116 attachments to those emails (total of 203,349 documents). It should noted that case sensitive searches are not possible, so the term "Anonymous" returns both references to the group "Anonymous" as well as any reference to anonymous tips, informants, etc. As we can't segregate between the two meanings of the word, USMS would have to manually review every single document just to identify the possibly responsive files. To that end, USMS would like to request that you narrow the scope of the request so that we can continue to process your request. One suggestion would be to remove the term "Anonymous" from the search terms and just proceed with variations of "hack" (which would include variations of hacker, hacktivist, hacktivism), but we are open to suggestions.
Your request in currently being placed in a pending yourresponse. Please note, if your response is not received Hold Status, , it will be administratively closed. within 30 days Thank you,
ERT for
USMSFOIA Administrative Team Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Office
Office of General Counsel
From: Emma North-Best
>One suggestion would be to remove the term "Anonymous" from the search terms and just proceed with variations of "hack" (which would include variations of hacker, hacktivist, hacktivism), but we are open to suggestions.
That's agreeable, thank you.
From: Department of Justice, United States Marshals
GoodAfternoon, USMS hascompleted its search for responsive records and located several thousandpossibly responsive documents to your request. A great many of the documentsreviewed to date appear to be links and/or copies of public news articles; inan effort to speed up the production of documents to you, USMS would like toinquire about whether you would be amenable to excluding those documents.Please advise at your convenience. Thank you,
ERT for USMS FOIAAdministrative Team
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