FBI misused surveillance tool on Jan. 6 suspects, BLM arrestees and others

[former9thward]

The FBI has misused a powerful digital surveillance tool more than 278,000 times, including against crime victims, Jan. 6 riot suspects, people arrested at protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and — in one case — 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate, according to a newly unsealed court document.

FBI officials say they have already fixed the problems, which the agency blamed on a misunderstanding between its employees and Justice Department lawyers about how to properly use a vast database named for the legal statute that created it, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

But the failures to use the database correctly when collecting information about U.S. citizens and others may make it harder for the agency to marshal support in Congress to renew the law, which is due to expire at the end of this year. It may also create additional head winds for the FBI, which has been under attack for years by former president Donald Trump and his political supporters. House lawmakers aligned with Trump held a hearing this week trying to show that the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is biased against conservatives.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees Section 702, has pressured the FBI to address the problems, writing in the April 2022 opinion that was unsealed Friday that if the agency doesn’t perform better, the court will crack down and order its own changes to FBI practices.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/19/fbi-digital-surveillance-misuse-jan6-blm/

[MagickMuffin]

1. Paywall! So, Who was the congressional candidate?

Inquiring minds need to know!

[former9thward]

2. They are not identifying him/her

In a different incident, an FBI analyst “conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign” because the analyst said the campaign was “a target of foreign influence,” the opinion said. But Justice Department officials found in an audit that “only eight identifiers used in the query” — often a name, phone number or an email address — “had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities” to comply with FISA standards. It’s not clear what, if anything, was done with the information collected.

Officials said the candidate in question did not ultimately win a seat in Congress, and the incident was distinct from an instance in which Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) said FISA surveillance wrongly targeted him.