The FBI has been adamant about withholding information about their plans to ensure the government can access any encrypted emails or messages sent over the Internet, but now a federal judge says the agency needs to come clean.

US District Judge Richard Seeborg took the side of the Electronic Frontier Foundation this week in a case that’s been disputed back and forth between Pennsylvania Avenue and Silicon Valley for years. Washington hopes to eventually roll out a program that will see that the FBI and other federal agencies are allowed backdoor access to any and all online communications. So far, though, they’ve managed to make much of the so-called “Going Dark” program a matter that’s shielded from interested parties, namely the EFF and other Internet activists. On Tuesday, Judge Seeborg agreed with the plaintiffs that the Justice Department has been not exactly accommodating with Freedom of Information Act paperwork filed by the San Francisco-based non-profit, and said the FBI and other federal agencies will have to go back and reassess those requests, ordering a "further review of the materials previously withheld.”

The EFF has on at least two occasions filed FOIA requests for info on the secretive surveillance blueprints the FBI has drafted, but the response have been scant at best. Judge Seeborg now rules that the DoJ will have to examine their annals once again for information, as their responses to the requests so far have been insincere.