SpyVeillance: Thread

[grarpamp]

Report Shows FBI Spied On 3.3 Million Americans Without A Warrant, GOP
Demands Answers

https://www.theepochtimes.com/report-shows-fbi-spied-on-3-3-million-americans-without-a-warrant-gop-demands-answers_4487840.html

https://republicans-judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/2022-05-24-JDJ-MT-to-Wray-FISA.pdf



Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI after
court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal
agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans
without a warrant.
Republican Representative from Ohio Jim Jordan speaks during the House
Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement
Accountability at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on June 10,
2020. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/Getty Images)

In a May 25 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Reps. Jim Jordan
(R-Ohio) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked Wray to explain why his agency
had wiretapped and gathered personal information on over 3.3 million
Americans without a warrant (pdf).

Limited authority to gather foreign intelligence information is
granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Specifically, section 702 of the bill says: “the Attorney General (AG)
and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) may jointly authorize
the targeting of (i) non-U.S. persons (ii) who are reasonably believed
to be outside of the United States (iii) to acquire foreign
intelligence information.”

However, this power can grant an expanding circle of possible searches
to the FBI and other intel agencies, who can use the same power
against American citizens who had any interaction with targeted
foreigners.

Historically, insight into how FISA has been used against American
citizens has been limited and hidden behind classified reports.

However, a November 2020 decision by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC)—which serves as a watchdog for U.S.
intelligence agencies—required that the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (ODNI) report “the number of U.S. person queries
run by the FBI against Section 702-acquired information.”

In accordance with these new requirements, ODNI’s recently-released
Annual Statistical Transparency Report included data on how often the
FBI gathered information on American citizens using section 702 in
2021.

In total, queries against U.S. citizens came out to a jaw-dropping
3,394,053 searches. By comparison, only 1,324,057 such queries were
made in 2020, representing around a 250 percent increase during
President Joe Biden’s first year in office.

According to ODNI more than half of these queries—approximately 1.9
million—were part of the larger investigation of alleged Russian
attempts to target or weaken U.S. critical infrastructure.

The ODNI report also admitted that on at least four occasions, the FBI
failed to get FISC approval before accessing the contents of
information collected under section 702.

This is not the first time the FBI has been caught red-handed
overstepping its legal authority under section 702.

In November 2020, the FISC announced that “the government … reported
numerous incidents” in which the FBI reviewed information gathered
under section 702 without obtaining proper permission from the court.

On other occasions, the FISC noted, the FBI used section 702 for
issues entirely unrelated to foreign intelligence. These included
queries for criminal investigations about healthcare fraud,
transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism
involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as
investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.”

“None of these queries was related to national security, and they
returned numerous Section 702-acquired products in response,” the FISC
noted.

“Rigorous Congressional oversight of the FBI’s Section 702-related
activities is essential given FBI’s track record utilizing its FISA
authorities,” Jordan and Turner ruled in view of the FBI’s past
overreach.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary
Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington, on March 2, 2021. (Mandel
Ngan-Pool/Getty Images)

In their letter to Wray, Jordan and Turner laid out a laundry list of
questions about the report, demanding further transparency and
explanations on the revelation that the FBI has often overstepped its
legal authority to spy on American citizens.

Among other questions, they requested a full accounting of all
3,394,053 citizens who showed up in FBI queries and “[the] number of
preliminary or full investigations into any U.S. citizens the FBI has
initiated as a result of information obtained through any of these
U.S. person queries, and the nature of the predication for each such
investigation.”

They also asked for information on the 1.9 million Americans queried
over alleged Russian efforts to compromise U.S. critical
infrastructure. Specifically, they asked for, “The rationale for why
these queries were found to be compliant with the FBI’s Section 702
querying procedures [and the] total number of U.S. citizens the FBI
identified as victims of these compromises(s) pursuant to these
queries.”

In addition, they demanded “A detailed statement about the FBI’s
investigation, including the status of the investigation and any
information uncovered about the identity of the Russian actors and
their involvement with or connection to the Russian government, if
any.”

Additionally, they asked for information gathered under FISA rules in
the years between 2015 and 2020, as well as for an explanation of the
FBI’s overreach of authority on various occasions.

The letter demands that Wray provide a written response by no later
than 5 p.m. on June 7.

FISA Section 702 was last authorized by Congress for a six-year period
in 2018 and will be up for reauthorization in 2024.