Secret court rules that FBI performed tens of thousands of illegal searches on raw NSA data about US citizens – including one agent who searched for his family

  • The FBI relied on a warrantless surveillance program intended to check up on foreign agents to illegally research tens of thousands of Americans
  • The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that the FBI used the warrantless program for internet surveillance to search Americans' data
  • The Bureau was alleged to have used the warrantless program to dig up thousands of phone numbers and emails
  • The agency even used the system to vet sources and staff. In one instance, an FBI contractor looked up information on his family, other FBI staff, and himself
  • The ruling 'reveals serious failings in the FBI's backdoor searches,' underscoring why warrants are required of law enforcement to protect privacy

The FBI tapped into a warrantless surveillance program to perform tens of thousands of illegal searches on Americans.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has ruled that the searches are an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights.

The Bureau went into the National Security Agency's databases searching for information on US citizens - when legally it only could have been used to gather foreign intelligence information.

In one instance, among the searches of thousands of emails and telephone numbers, an FBI contractor looked up information on his family, other members of the Bureau and himself, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The FBI tapped into a warrantless, surveillance program to search for data on Americans, in what a court has deemed to be an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights

The FBI tapped into a warrantless, surveillance program to search for data on Americans, in what a court has deemed to be an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights

In on instance, among the searches of thousands of emails and telephone numbers, an FBI contractor had even used the databases to look up information on his family, other members of the Bureau and himself, reports The Wall Street Journal

In on instance, among the searches of thousands of emails and telephone numbers, an FBI contractor had even used the databases to look up information on his family, other members of the Bureau and himself, reports The Wall Street Journal 

Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and critic of US surveillance programs, said the disclosure 'reveals serious failings in the FBI's backdoor searches, underscoring the need for the government to seek a warrant before searching through mountains of private data on Americans.'

The court, which considers foreign surveillance warrants requested by the FBI and NSA, ruled that the Bureau used the system to search for raw data on Americans, and likely broke privacy laws that protect Americans under the constitution.

The Fourth Amendment protects American citizens from 'unreasonable searches.'

A search of such raw data goes against the very same law that authorizes the surveillance program, the court ruled.

The legal impacts on the Bureau are not clear, since no criminal charges were filed. 

The NSA's data base was created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and was intended for keeping tabs on foreign intelligence and to uncover foreign crime, reports the Journal. 

Agents, however, made tens tens of thousands of potentially illegal searches between 2017 and 2018. The searches included thousands of emails and phone numbers, and included the contractor's search of his family, other agents and himself. 

The court made the startling revelation that in one day alone in December 2017, the Bureau made 6,800 queries of the databases using Social Security numbers, Daily Beast reports. 

There were 'fundamental misunderstandings' among some FBI personnel over the standards necessary for the searches, the government conceded secretly.

Judge James Boasberg of the FISA court, the Journal reports, wrote that the case demonstrated how a 'single improper decision or assessment' resulted in a search of data belonging to a large number of individuals. 

He said the government had reported since April 2017 'a large number of FBI queries that were not reasonably likely to return foreign-intelligence information or evidence of a crime,' the standard required for such searches.

'The FBI's querying procedures and minimization procedures,' according to Boasberg, 'are not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment'.