official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the documents with reporters.

Several of the large-batch searches involved agents proactively trying to identify threats within the information the government had collected without waiting for a tip or criminal referral, said a senior F.B.I. Judge Boasberg wrote that the searches involving large numbers of queries using Americans’ identifiers raised a “serious concern” that agents either did not understand the standard or were indifferent to it. (The results were never scrutinized, the ruling said.) The discussion of the F.B.I.’s search for tens of thousands of identifiers involving its own work force also said that the bureau’s general counsel had raised objections beforehand. The documents’ description of episodes involving large-batch queries that violated the rules were heavily redacted, so it was difficult to discern what the agents had been trying to learn. But there has to be an individualized reason to search for any particular American’s information. employees or contractors - so long as agents had a reason to believe that someone within that category might have relevant information. agents had carried out several large-scale searches for Americans who generically fit into broad categories - like they were F.B.I. Those events formed the backdrop to the fight over the new rules for querying the surveillance repository. had conducted improperly sweeping searches of the repository. The idea of requiring agents to document their rationales for searching for an American’s information emerged from several recent episodes in which the Justice Department reported to the court that the F.B.I. initially resisted that idea, too, but after the appeals court said it had to rewrite its procedures to track queries better, it accepted the other new mandate, too. agents, before reviewing any emails of Americans that turned up in a search, to document in writing how that search term - like an email address or a phone number - met the standard of being likely to return foreign intelligence information or criminal evidence.

Judge Boasberg rejected that idea as inadequate, and the appeals court upheld his ruling. initially proposed simply called for it to keep track of all queries of the repository, without distinguishing which sought information about Americans and which were focused on foreigners. A particular controversy has arisen over the F.B.I.’s ability to use it to find information about Americans.īut the procedures that the F.B.I. The government can collect the data even when that person is talking to an American. The Section 702 program permits the government to collect communications from American companies like Google or AT&T without a warrant, so long as the target of the surveillance is a noncitizen abroad. acquiesced and changed its procedures, resolving the fight, the files showed. In July, the review court affirmed a central part of Judge Boasberg’s original ruling. rules, the Justice Department made a rare appeal to a three-judge panel that can review FISA court decisions. Rather than comply with his ruling and adjust the F.B.I. But he rejected the F.B.I.’s, saying the bureau’s rules were “not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment,” which protects Americans’ privacy from unreasonable searches. Boasberg, approved the procedures submitted by other agencies, like the C.I.A. In October 2018, the FISA court judge, James E. The latest chapter began in early 2018, when Congress extended the law that authorizes the warrantless surveillance program - known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act - while adding a new requirement: Agencies that use the surveillance program’s repository of intercepted messages must win court approval for rules about how they may search it for Americans’ data.

Fisa document info wars