A groundbreaking revelation has prompted criticism and concerns over the FBI’s excessive use of surveillance powers. The news comes from a recently uncovered Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court document.
The court document is an April 2022 opinion by Judge Contreras regarding the FBI’s abuses of Section 702. It exposes that the FBI improperly used a digital surveillance database, known as the Section 702 database, to gather information on US citizens. The databases were used close to 300,000 times. [Source]
The opinion reveals that the FISC questioned the FBI’s use of the Section 702 database, and pressured them to rectify issues associated with its usage.
Under Section 702, FBI agents are only permitted to search the database when they have a reason to believe that the search will yield foreign intelligence information. The targets of such a search should usually be foreign agents or terrorist suspects. [Source]
However, the actual targets of surveillance ranged from Jan.6 suspects, people associated with civil unrest during the Black Lives Matter protests, to political donors.
The FBI used identifiers of individuals linked to civil unrest and protests. It carried out 23,000 search queries on individuals believed to be involved in the Jan.6 riot. Even conducting searches on more than 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign.
The court also found that between May 30 and June 18, 2022, the FBI searched 133 people in connection with the civil unrest that followed after George Floyd’s death.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court concluded that the FBI failed to present a foreign intelligence purpose for these search queries. Prompting the court to caution the FBI that failure to improve its performance might lead the court to enforce changes to FBI practices.
In response to the court’s concerns, the FBI acknowledged its misuse, attributing it to misunderstandings between its personnel and Justice Department lawyers over the proper use of the database.
The FBI introduced corrective measures in the summer of 2021 that significantly reduced the number of searches on the database. An annual report for calendar year 2022 from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the number of searches dropped by 93%.
The ODNI also found that the drop was due to improvements in FBI “systems, processes, and training relating to U.S. person queries,”.
It’s worth noting that the federal act that created Section 702 expires at the end of 2023. The FBI knows full well that without corrective measures, the federal act probably won’t be renewed.
Despite these changes, these troubling events highlight the perceived bias within the FBI against conservatives. These events align with the report from Special Counsel John Durham released on May 12, 2023, and with the hearings on the weaponization of government.
Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should not have initiated a full-scale investigation into the connections between former President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Criticizing the probe as “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence”. [Source]
Interestingly, the report did not recommend any new changes or suggest procedural changes for the FBI.
The report also uncovered a discrepancy in the standard used by the FBI when deciding whether to investigate Trump and Russia, as opposed to considering an investigation into Hillary Clinton, for potential election interference.
In light of Durham’s findings, the FBI responded that they had already identified their mistakes and have taken corrective measures.
The investigation led by Durham, ongoing since 2019, ended with just one conviction – that of Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer who admitted to doctoring an email about a surveillance warrant but avoided jail time. [Source]
This new report further complicates the narrative surrounding the FBI’s conduct while investigating Republican representatives.
The FBI used the Section 702 database to investigate 19,000 donors to a political campaign for a seat in Congress. In Judge Contreras’ opinion, it was found that the FBI didn’t have sufficient reason to believe that the search would lead to foreign intelligence information for only 8 of the donors. [Source]
The opinion does not name the candidate, but it mentions that the campaign did not result in a win.
This news has not been well-received by conservatives, particularly when considering Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) testimony during a House select committee hearing on February 28. Darin LaHood claimed he had been unjustly targeted in sensitive data searches by the FBI. The hearing concluded that the searches should not have taken place. [Source]
Although the FBI claims it reduced the number of searches in the Section 702 database, there is a call for accountability and responsibility in the 2024 presidential election.
It is clear that there is a trend of alleged FBI interference with elections and perceived bias against conservatives. We must question the FBI’s surveillance powers even deeper. To protect civil freedoms while ensuring national security.