FBI Improperly Searched Senator’s Name in FISA 702 Database
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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On July 21, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence partially declassified a court opinion written in April that revealed an FBI analyst ran unapproved searches using the last names of a U.S. Senator and state senator in June 2022. (Their identities have not been made public.)
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which oversees the FBI’s surveillance authority known as Section 702, found in an opinion the FBI’s querying practices “are consistent with the requirements of the statute and the Fourth Amendment.” This search was conducted using data collected by the National Security Administration under Section 702, which is up for re-authorization by Congress this year. The Section 702 reauthorization debate has focused on potential violations of Fourth Amendment rights and other civil liberties.
This latest revelations comes just two months after another unsealed FISC opinion revealed that the FBI improperly used the 702 database 278,000 times, querying crime victims, suspects in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and people arrested at protests stemming from the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Read the opinion here or below.
