A conservative gadfly who has made a crusade of uncovering embarrassing emails at the Environmental Protection Agency wants to tap a new potential evidence trove: the National Security Agency’s electronic snooping program.

Attorney Chris Horner has filed a Freedom of Information Act request, asking the NSA to turn over any information it might have gleaned from former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s personal Verizon email account. The data could buttress critics’ accusations that Jackson and other top environmental regulators have routinely used private channels to discuss public business.

“When NSA made the decision to obtain information on Verizon customers not due to any particular suspicion or as part of any law enforcement action, it determined that any privacy concerns were outweighed by the public’s interest in NSA possessing such records,” Horner said in his letter to the spy agency.

In addition, Horner cited a Verizon Web page in which the company said it’s allowed to share private information in certain circumstances under the contracts that customers have signed. “We also note that Verizon asserts Ms. Jackson would have agreed to such sharing as part of the privacy clause in her customer agreement,” he wrote.

Jackson, who is now the top environmental officer at Apple, didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. The EPA and the NSA did not comment either. Horner filed the request on behalf of the American Tradition Institute and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/epa-nsa-lisa-jackson-email-95679.html#ixzz2cXVeXrLo