[ "The FBIs systematic misuse of these resources proves that it
(and the rest of the federal government) simply cant be trusted to
wield this sort of power," said one campaigner. "Let 702 die."]
[[link removed]]

FBI FOR ABUSES SURVEILLANCE TOOL 278,000+ TIMES  
[[link removed]]


 

Jessics Corbett
May 20, 2023
Common Dreams
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ "The FBI's systematic misuse of these resources proves that it (and
the rest of the federal government) simply can't be trusted to wield
this sort of power," said one campaigner. "Let 702 die." _

A document released on May 19, 2023 shows the Federal Bureau of
Investigation misused a surveillance tool over 278,000 in under two
years. , Gwengoat/Getty Images

 

 

Friday's "alarming
[[link removed]]"
revelations about U.S. law enforcement's abuse of a powerful
surveillance tool "confirmed the worst fears of advocates
[[link removed]]" and
likely further complicated a brewing battle
[[link removed]]
in Congress over reauthorizing
[[link removed]]
a constitutionally dubious
[[link removed]]
spying law.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA)—which is set to expire at the end of this year unless
reauthorized by federal lawmakers—empowers the U.S. government to
engage in warrantless surveillance of electronic communications.
Although the law only authorizes
[[link removed]]
targeting foreigners located outside the United States to acquire
foreign intelligence information, a massive amount of Americans' data
is also collected
[[link removed]].

On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI),
in consultation with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), released a
pair of redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)
opinions
[[link removed]]—one
which revealed
[[link removed]]
that in 2020 and early 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
misused the Section 702 database over 278,000 times.

"These unlawful searches undermine our core constitutional rights and
threaten the bedrock of our democracy. It's clear the FBI can't be
left to police itself."

The "persistent and widespread" violations by the FBI—which is part
of the DOJ—include searches for information related to crime
victims, protesters arrested after the 2020 police killing of George
Floyd [[link removed]], donors to a
congressional candidate, and people suspected of breaching the U.S.
Capitol on January 6, 2021.

_The New York Times _reported
[[link removed]]
that "a senior FBI official said that in those cases, the analysts
misunderstood the standard and were required to undergo additional
training," and a representative for the DOJ disclosed that the
unidentified political candidate lost to an incumbent lawmaker.

The ODNI's statement about the court documents insists
[[link removed]]
that "all of these compliance incidents occurred prior to FBI
deploying a series of remedial measures beginning in the summer of
2021 and through 2022. As a result, these compliance incidents do not
reflect FBI's querying practices subsequent to the full deployment of
the remedial measures."

However, exposure of the FBI's conduct prompted fresh demands from
civil liberties advocates in Congress and beyond for seriously
reforming or even ending Section 702, with several critics casting
doubt on claims that the bureau—and other agencies with access to
the collected data—will behave absent outside intervention.

"These abuses have been going on for years and despite recent changes
in FBI practices, these systematic violations of Americans' privacy
require congressional action," U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) declared
[[link removed]]
Friday. "If Section 702 is to be reauthorized, there must be statutory
reforms to ensure that the checks and balances are in place to put an
end to these abuses."

"I am disappointed at the extent of the redactions in the opinions
released today," he added, pledging to pressure ODNI to inform the
public about the interpretation of the law behind closed doors. "There
is important, secret information about how the government has
interpreted Section 702 that Congress and the American people need to
see before the law is renewed."

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) also
weighed in, though he noted his hesitation to do so given that Rep.
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has created the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government—which has been called
[[link removed]] the
"Insurrection Protection Committee" and a "fascist power grab to evade
accountability" by progressive lawmakers:

In the middle of Chairman Jordan's overzealous attack on federal law
enforcement and the absurd claims advanced by the MAGA crowd on the
weaponization subcommittee, I am hesitant to comment at all—but the
abuse of FISA authority detailed in this opinion demands a response
from all members of Congress. Section 702 exists only to protect the
country from external threats to our national security. The government
may only use it to target non-U.S. persons located outside of the
United States. If the FBI insists on using it for routine domestic
criminal investigations, without a warrant or probable cause, then
perhaps they should not have access to this information at all. The
problem is not that the FBI unlawfully targeted thousands of Americans
of any particular political view. They appear to have conducted
backdoor searches on Black Lives Matter
[[link removed]] protestors,
January 6th rioters, and everyone in between. The problem is that they
unlawfully targeted thousands of Americans. Period.

The FBI says that they have instituted new procedures to make this
kind of abuse impossible. They have made that promise before. Without
significant changes to the law to prevent this abuse, I will oppose
the reauthorization of this authority.

Civil society groups that have for years sounded the alarm about
Section 702 responded similarly to the latest revelations.

"Today's disclosures underscore the need for Congress to rein in the
FBI's egregious abuses of this law, including warrantless searches
using the names of people who donated to a congressional candidate,"
Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security
Project, told
[[link removed]]_The
Associated Press_ Friday. "These unlawful searches undermine our core
constitutional rights and threaten the bedrock of our democracy. It's
clear the FBI can't be left to police itself."

_The Washington Post_noted
[[link removed]]
that "this is not the only time the FBI has been in trouble for the
database. Another recent audit found multiple problems
[[link removed]],
including that the FBI used the database to search for the name of a
member of Congress
[[link removed]]."

"For the FBI to misuse Section 702 to spy on people protesting the
killing of George Floyd
[[link removed]], political donors, and
victims of crimes is an unspeakable abuse of trust," said
[[link removed]]
Demand Progress senior policy counsel Sean Vitka. "Congress must enact
comprehensive privacy protections for people in the United States,
against all forms of warrantless surveillance, or Section 702 must
fall. If the administration wants to see this law survive in any form,
it should publicly embrace this reality."

The Biden administration in recent months has urged
[[link removed]]
Congress to reauthorize Section 702, including in a February letter
[[link removed]] to top
Democratic and Republican lawmakers from Attorney General Merrick
Garland and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence.

Vitka asserted that the "shocking" abuse is "unmatched since the days
of J. Edgar Hoover," a former longtime FBI director also referenced
[[link removed]]
by Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy &
Technology's Security & Surveillance Project.

"Even with the long history of FBI misuse of FISA 702, these latest
revelations should set off alarm bells across Congress," said
Laperruque. "The systemic misuse of this warrantless surveillance tool
has made FISA 702 as toxic as COINTELPRO and the FBI abuses of the
Hoover years. Absent a full overhaul of Section 702 and related
surveillance powers, Congress should not allow the law to be extended
past this year."

"For decades, we've seen surveillance abuse target political
dissidents and marginalized communities, and worried a defensive
search exception for FISA 702 could be misused the same way," he
added, referring to queries
[[link removed]]
seeking data on someone who may be a victim or target of a foreign
influence operation. "This shocking example of 'defensive searches'
being an excuse to pull up the communications of a batch of 19,000
political donors without a warrant should end the discussion of
whether any type of 'defensive search' exception is safe or
acceptable.”

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty
and National Security Program, said
[[link removed]] in a
series of tweets Friday that "it's time to end this charade once and
for all. The Fourth Amendment requires the government to show probable
cause to a court if it wants to access Americans’ communications."

"Backdoor searches provide an end-run around this requirement under
the best of circumstances and they are indefensible when the
[government] is violating its own minimal standards in ways that
directly impact Americans' rights to engage in political protest,
donate to political campaigns, or just live their lives free from
[government] scrutiny based on race or ethnicity," she added.
"Congress should not authorize Section 702 without sweeping reforms,
starting with a warrant requirement to conduct U.S. person queries of
any data the government obtained without a warrant based on the claim
that it was not targeting Americans."

In a Friday opinion piece for _Fast Company_, Albert Fox Cahn, founder
and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight
Project, argued
[[link removed]]
that the data collected under Section 702 "is nothing short of a
loaded gun aimed at the heart of a democracy, a lawless digital
dragnet systematically abused by those who swore to uphold the law."

The campaigner continued:

As civil rights groups warned would happen, FBI agents just couldn't
help themselves. Rather than follow the limits that were supposed to
protect Americans from this international dragnet, agents used this
terrifying tool to target protesters and domestic suspects. And the
abuses should be chilling to all of us, no matter where we sit on the
political spectrum...

It would have been disturbing if these sorts of egregious examples
happened just a few times, but to see the FBI's systematic misuse of
these resources proves that it (and the rest of the federal
government) simply can't be trusted to wield this sort of power.

"If the FBI is willing to break the law this brazenly, Congress and
the administration must acknowledge that there's no set of guardrails,
no Band-Aid, that can fix 702 and keep the public safe," he concluded.
"The only way to safeguard our data and our rights is to do what we
should have done a long time ago: Let 702 die."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

 

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.


* Civil Rights
[[link removed]]
* FBI
[[link removed]]
* FBI spying
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]