Senator Wyden demands a probe into the Federal Judiciary’s data breaches

In a letter addressed to Chief Justice John Roberts, Senator Ron Wyden asks the judge to commission a committee to review a recent data breach of the Federal Judiciary’s case management system, and a similar incident that occurred in 2020.

“The Federal Judiciary has repeatedly proven itself incapable of protecting the highly sensitive and confidential information with which it has been entrusted,” Senator Wyden says in a letter that was published on Monday.

He is referring to separate occasions in which the Federal Judiciary’s case management system was hacked. This happened in 2020, and more recently. Following the latest incident, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which manages the federal court filing system, promised to implement more security measures to protect court documents.

Senator Wyden argues that the Federal Judiciary’s knowledge of and approach to cybersecurity is a “severe threat” to the United States’ national security.

“The courts have been entrusted with some of our nation’s most confidential and sensitive information, including national security documents that could reveal sources and methods to our adversaries, and sealed criminal charging and investigative documents that could enable suspects to flee from justice or target witnesses. Yet, you continue to refuse to require the federal courts to meet mandatory cybersecurity requirements and allow them to routinely ignore basic cybersecurity best practices,” he writes.

The Senator from Oregon even goes so far as to accuse the Federal Judiciary of “covering up its own negligence and incompetence.” In addition, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts neglected a warning that was given by Judge Michael Scudder, who chairs the Committee on Information Technology of the federal courts’ policymaking body. He said that the Federal Judiciary’s case management system is “outdated” and needs replacement.

“The judiciary’s complete failure to address its cybersecurity problems after the 2020 breach, as well as the subsequent coverup and stonewalling of congressional oversight, makes it clear that the judiciary and its policymaking arm, the Judicial Conference, are ill-equipped to diagnose and address their own problems,” Senator Wyden continues.

That’s why he urges Chief Justice John Roberts to set up “an independent, public, expert review” by the National Academy of Sciences to investigate the 2020 and 2025 hacks of the case management system, the Federal Judiciary’s cybersecurity practices, and the Judiciary’s mismanagement of its own technology.