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https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-documents-show-fbi-and-atf-warrantless-surveillance-through-gun-background-checks_4981696.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/atf-gains-financial-information-on-potential-gun-buyers-for-warrantless-tracking-documents-show_5119085.html

EXCLUSIVE: ATF Gains Financial Information on Potential Gun Buyers for
Warrantless Tracking, Documents Show
A person holds a gun in a file image. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A person holds a gun in a file image. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Emily Miller
By Emily Miller
March 14, 2023Updated: March 15, 2023
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The federal government has been using Americans’ income and gun
purchases to conduct warrantless tracking and deny Second Amendment
rights. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF) gave salary estimates to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) as the reason to have people’s firearms purchases
monitored.

Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America (GOA),
told The Epoch Times that the ATF’s activities “monitoring innocent
people” is a serious problem. “Congress needs to rein in this rogue
agency by either exercising oversight over it or abolishing the
unconstitutional agency altogether,” said Pratt.

These revelations come from new documents, viewed by The Epoch Times
which it received from its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.
The latest production from the FOIA has hundreds of pages—many
redacted—showing ATF agents requesting warrantless surveillance by the
FBI for lawful reasons such as low salaries, past firearm purchases,
and sending “bizarre” messages.

The Epoch Times exclusively reported in January about the FBI’s secret
monitoring service that tracks people by the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) for gun purchases for mere “potential
violations of law.”
Too Poor to Buy Guns

According to the documents, a man in Arizona was put into the NICS’s
daily monitoring because he has a “reported income” of only $2,839.
The ATF agent wrote, “In my experience, someone with this amount of
income would not be able to afford 20 firearms.”

An Asian man in Texas was put on the manual background check because
the ATF said he has “no work history” which “could possibly indicate”
that he is “straw purchasing.”

A special agent in Kansas emailed ATF’s liaison at the NICS to flag
two purchasers for “potential trafficking.” The agent wrote: “My
targets are purchasing an abundance of firearms without a license or
known financial means to obtain the product.”

The FBI’s NICS expert instructed the agent in Kansas on what to
include to ensure approval for tracking the suspects. “I would suggest
covering the lack of income versus expenditures and also if there is
substantial make/model duplication,” wrote the FBI. The ATF agent
emailed back with the incomes for each man, acquired by the Kansas
Department of Labor.

All the cases in the documents are related to the ATF investigating
dealing firearms without a license and straw purchasing, which is
buying guns for people prohibited from owning a firearm.
Tracking Income

Gun rights activists say federal law enforcement is missing the mark.

“The poor usually live in areas with the most crime and thus have a
strong need to arm themselves heavily,” Pratt said. “So targeting the
indigent is simply another avenue for gun grabbers to implement a
backdoor gun ban.”

ATF headquarters will not disclose how it acquired the other suspects’
incomes, employment information, and past gun purchases found in the
FOIA forms.

“We are unable to discuss specific techniques utilized in criminal
investigations,” ATF spokesman Erik Longnecker told The Epoch Times.
“ATF utilizes a multitude of legal means in our criminal
investigations to protect our communities from violent gun crime.”

Longnecker referred The Epoch Times to the National Tracing Center
website for information about “several overt programs such as multiple
sales and demand letters that can be helpful in identifying illegal
firearms trafficking.”
Buying Too Many Guns

A black man in Florida was monitored daily by the FBI for at least 90
days in 2020 because an ATF agent wrote: “Based on my training and
experience, I have not seen a legal firearms purchaser purchase
approximately 30 firearms in a 120-day window for their personal
collection.”

Licensed firearms dealers must report to ATF the sale of two or more
handguns to the same purchaser within five consecutive business days.
However, there is no federal law limiting the number of guns a person
can buy.

“Some agent just decided that is enough Second Amendment for you this
year,” Robert Olson, the attorney who filed the FOIA lawsuit for the
GOA, told The Epoch Times.
Buying and Selling Guns

A Wisconsin man was put under surveillance in 2020 because an ATF
agent saw text messages related to buying and selling guns and
suspected dealing without a license. The agent said the man bought
guns from the website Gunbroker.com, transferred them through a local
gun store, and then resold the firearms “using email, text messaging,
and the website Armslist.com.”

There is more redacted black markings than visible information on this
form, but it does not disclose the number of guns the suspect bought
and sold.

The ATF has an online guide that explains: “If you only make
occasional sales of firearms from your personal collection, you do not
need to be licensed.” It also says you “will need a license if you
repetitively buy and sell firearms with the principal motive of making
a profit.”
Too Many Gun Parts

In the secret documents, an ATF agent asked the FBI to flag a man in
Arizona suspected of dealing parts of guns. “In my experience, it is
common for people to purchase large number of AR-15 style lower
receivers, build them into rifles, and sell the rifles for profit,”
the agent wrote to get the suspect put into NICS.

A “lower receiver” is the base part of an AR-style rifle which has a
serial number on it. It cannot fire without a barrel, trigger, and
other parts put on it.

“It is common for people to buy several lower receivers and build them
into finished guns. If it’s your hobby, that is not sufficient to
prove you are illegally dealing firearms,” said attorney Olson. “How
does the agent distinguish between the Second Amendment enthusiast and
the criminals?”
‘Bizarre’ Messages

A Missouri man was put into NICS after an ATF agent emailed that a
“U.S. Attorney’s Office asked that we monitor his activity due to
recent threats and bizarre messages he has been leaving.”

The agent wrote that the man “was recently released from BOP [Bureau
of Prisons] and has begun making threats toward the U.S. Attorney’s
Office, federal judge, and ATF case agent.” The completed form does
not indicate the man has committed a felony, which would mean he would
be in the NICS and prevented from buying a gun at the point of sale.

“Sending bizarre messages is not something that makes you lose your
Second Amendment rights,” said Olson. “He sounds like a bad guy, but
it’s not connected to firearms. That’s a huge misuse of the background
check process.”
Anonymous Tips

The ATF’s law enforcement role is to investigate when a prohibited
person completes a 4473 gun background check, and the NICS denies the
purchase. In one case in the files, the ATF appears to have a woman
tracked before the investigation has been done and based on an
anonymous tip.

Documents show a Hispanic woman in Texas was put into the NICS because
an agent got an “iTip provided by an anonymous person” who related
that she had “purchased 10 firearms in the last two weeks.”

The agent wrote that the investigation was incomplete because it did
not have the background check forms from the dealer (“4473s”) nor
video footage from the store.
ATF and FBI Unbowed

There are no instances of the FBI denying any ATF request to put a
person under warrantless surveillance in all the documents released so
far. Moreover, there are no documents showing the monitoring periods
ended. As we previously reported, the FBI told the ATF that it will
renew the NICS flags of 30 to 120 days and limitless times if
requested.

“It’s time for Congress to repeal the NICS check. Given that more than
95 percent of the initial stops are for mistaken identity, it is clear
that NICS is not keeping guns out of criminals’ hands,” GOA’s Pratt
said.

The ATF spokesman declined to say if this monitoring program with the
FBI was ongoing. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment for
this story.