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The FBI's Most Controversial Surveillance Tool is Under Threat (arstechnica.com) 39

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
An existential fight over the US government's ability to spy on its own citizens is brewing in Congress. And as this fight unfolds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's biggest foes on Capitol Hill are no longer reformers merely interested in reining in its authority. Many lawmakers, elevated to new heights of power by the recent election, are working to dramatically curtail the methods by which the FBI investigates crime. From a report: New details about the FBI's failures to comply with restrictions on the use of foreign intelligence for domestic crimes have emerged at a perilous time for the US intelligence community. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the so-called crown jewel of US intelligence, grants the government the ability to intercept the electronic communications of overseas targets who are unprotected by the Fourth Amendment. That authority is set to expire at the end of the year. But errors in the FBI's secondary use of the data -- the investigation of crimes on US soil -- are likely to inflame an already fierce debate over whether law enforcement agents can be trusted with such an invasive tool.

Central to this tension has been a routine audit by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) national security division and the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) -- America's "top spy" -- which unearthed new examples of the FBI failing to comply with rules limiting access to intelligence ostensibly gathered to protect US national security. Such "errors," they said, have occurred on a "large number" of occasions. A report on the audit, only recently declassified, found that in the first half of 2020, FBI personnel unlawfully searched raw FISA data on numerous occasions. In one incident, agents reportedly sought evidence of foreign influence linked to a US lawmaker. In another, an inappropriate search pertained to a local political party. In both cases, these "errors" were attributed to a "misunderstanding" of the law, the report says. At some point between December 2019 and May 2020, FBI personnel conducted searches of FISA data using "only the name of a US congressman," the report says, a query that investigators later found was "noncompliant" with legal procedures. Further reading: NSA Director Urges Congress To Renew Controversial Intelligence Authority.
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The FBI's Most Controversial Surveillance Tool is Under Threat More

The FBI's Most Controversial Surveillance Tool is Under Threat

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  • If I wanted a Stasi or a Komitet I'd move to an authoritarian hell hole and I strongly encourage anyone else who would gladly trade security for liberty to vote with their feet and establish residency in the democratic republic of their choice.

  • "Errors"... most amusing

    Just don't touch COINTELPRO, they target the right people

  • Patriot Act is called the Patriot Act for a Reason (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It was Republican president George W Bush who said "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists"

    Considering that the Republican party led a charge against the government of the United States, I guess we know which side the Republicans have chosen now.

    • The USA PATRIOT act is called that for a reason, and that reason is jingoism.

    • It's called the Patriot Act for the same reason China is called "The People's Republic of China", and North Korea is called "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". It's psychological inversion (I made up the word). Politicians name their laws inversely to their benefit to the country's citizenry.

      If the U.S. government were to name a law something like "Assured Systematic Subjugation Reassuring American Poverty Evermore Act", you could be reasonably certain we would all be getting a huge financial windfall.

  • Looking at the article in question, the leaders of this "movement" seem to be equally democratic and republican, and it's NOT a "new thing".

    But, people like to cry "it's the republicans!" if they think it's bad, and only say it's a good thing if a democrat leads the charge.

    This seems to be a good thing, has been around for years, and both parties are on board. So, what's the problem?

    • The problem is that if they reject FISA, that rejection will be blamed for the text terrorist attack or whatever, and we will be right back where we started. If they're going to really reign this in, they have to be smarter, or more aggressive than that.

    • >"But, people like to cry "it's the republicans!" if they think it's bad, and only say it's a good thing if a democrat leads the charge."

      It has been people in both parties. And the new push is strong by Republican Jordan:

      "Jordan, who wields significant power now as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, signaled on Fox News before the start of the new Congress that a reauthorization bill before his committee might be dead on arrival."

      Republicans like Paul have always been pushing to limit the FBI an

    • Well, it was Republicans who were outraged that the FBI executed a search warrant at MAL. It was a Republican terrorist who attacked an FBI office after issuing a "call to arms" on Truth Social.

      FBI attacker was prolific contributor to Trump’s Truth Social website [washingtonpost.com]

      I'm also going by comments I see on Fox News. If they're simply trolls why would a supposedly "conservative" media outlet that professes to love America allow so much anti-American hate, blatant racism and even veiled threats?

  • Good ol' fashioned warrants (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday February 13, 2023 @02:53PM (#63290113)
    You know, in many countries, they have these things called warrants whereby, if you want to invade someone's privacy, you have to have reasonable evidence that a crime may have or may be being committed, & you have to persuade an independent judge to sign their name on it & be held accountable if it turns out to be unwarranted (pun intended).

    Anything else is just trawling everyone's private information just in case they've done something that could possibly be illegal, which is a pretty effective way of selectively going after people you don't like &/or that you compete with.

    What we accept is what becomes standard procedure. We need checks & balances in place & for them to be overseen & enforced. Doesn't matter which end of a political, social, racial, or financial spectrum you're on, we should all be equal, or at least as near as possible, under the law.

  • pop (Score:5, Funny)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Monday February 13, 2023 @02:58PM (#63290119)
    it doesn't help that someone has started shooting down the FBI spy baloons

  • Misunderstanding? (Score:3)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday February 13, 2023 @03:56PM (#63290291)

    'In both cases, these "errors" were attributed to a "misunderstanding" of the law, the report says.'

    Since when does that constitute a defence?

    The only solution is for all these errors to result in payouts of over $1m to come out of the COLA payrise of FBI agents, with anyone who reports such an incident also gaining $1m. Oh - and loss of pensions...

  • Article from the last reauth (Score:3)

    by buck-yar ( 164658 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2023 @02:12AM (#63291319)

    https://theintercept.com/2017/... [theintercept.com]
    April 21 2017, 11:01 a.m.

    In her first appearance representing the American public before the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2015, Amy Jeffress argued that the FBI is violating the Fourth Amendment by giving agents “virtually unrestricted” access to data from one of the NSA’s largest surveillance programs, which includes an untold amount of communications involving innocent Americans.

    The NSA harvests data from major Internet companies like Facebook, Google and Apple without a warrant, because it is ostensibly “targeting” only foreigners. But the surveillance program sweeps up a large number of Americans’ communications as well. Then vast amounts of data from the program, including the Americans’ communications, are entered into a master database that a Justice Department lawyer at the 2015 hearing described as the “FBI’s ‘Google’ of its lawfully acquired information.”

    The FBI routinely searches this database during ordinary criminal investigations — which gives them access to Americans’ communications without a warrant.

    Jeffress, a former federal prosecutor now serving as an independent “friend of the court,” expressed frustration over the casualness with which the FBI is allowed to look through the data. “There need be no connection to foreign intelligence or national security, and that is the purpose of the collection,” she told Thomas Hogan, then the chief judge of the court. “So they’re overstepping, really, the purpose for which the information is collected.”

    The ACLU obtained the hearing transcript and other legal documents related to the secret court proceedings under the Freedom of Information Act, and released them to the public on Friday.

    The FISA Court has been widely criticized for its secrecy, its extreme tendency to defer to the government, and the fact that until recently it only heard the government’s side of the case. In 2015, Congress passed a law establishing the position of “amicus curiae” to represent the interests of the public and civil liberties, and Jeffress is one of five amici now serving.

    Jeffress, who is now a partner at the law firm Arnold and Porter, declined an interview request, citing the sensitivity of the FISA Court’s proceedings.

    The NSA program in question, called PRISM, operates under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is scheduled to sunset in December unless it is reauthorized by Congress. What critics call the FBI’s “backdoor search loophole” is likely to be a major topic of debate in the coming months. Section 702 also authorizes a program called “Upstream,” which grabs massive amounts of data off major Internet backbones inside the U.S. without a warrant — again, because it is ostensibly “targeting” foreign communications.

    The FBI’s backdoor searches are so controversial that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed measures in 2014 and 2015 requiring agents to get a warrant before conducting them, although the Senate refused to take up either proposal.

    “Section 702 backdoor searches of Americans’ private communications are plainly unconstitutional, and the FBI’s warrantless searches are especially troubling,” said Ashley Gorski, a staff attorney with the ACLU.

    The CIA and even the NSA itself have imposed a requirement that each query they run on 702 data involving a U.S. person be supported by a statement of facts that explains why the information being sought is relevant to foreign intelligence – as the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board recommended in 2014.

    But when Hogan asked if the FBI were willing to do

  • I often see "Don't Tread On Me" stickers accompanied by "Back the Blue" or "Support the Troops" stickers and I wonder if they can read.

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