FBI misused database for Jan 6 suspects, racial justice protests
A redacted report from a supervisory court says the agency has had regular access to a database intended for foreign investigations.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations regularly abused an espionage database while investigating suspects in the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol, according to a heavily redacted document from a supervisory court.
The court document released Friday shows that the FBI used a special intelligence database of foreign intelligence thousands of times when investigating US citizens. to attack.
The database is maintained under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires at the end of the year. The latest revelations could threaten its renewal by Congress.
The issue has aligned staunch liberal defenders of civil liberties with allies of former President Donald Trump, who have long accused the FBI of unfairly targeting the Republican leader and his supporters.
It could also further amplify criticism from Republicans in Congress, who have created a committee in the US House of Representatives to investigate the administration’s “weapons”.
Repeated episodes failed to follow the FBI’s own standards, according to the document released Friday and issued last year by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which legally oversees the U.S. government’s espionage powers.
According to the document, 300,000 abuses were recorded between 2020 and early 2021.
In one case, the FBI interrogated the Section 702 repository with the name of someone believed to have been at the Capitol during the January 6 riot.
Officials obtained the information despite it having no “analytical, investigative or evidential purpose,” the warrant said.
In another episode, an FBI analyst put 13 questions to people suspected of being involved in the U.S. Capitol uprising to determine if they had any foreign ties. a crime.
Other violations occurred when FBI officials conducted searches in June 2020 regarding more than 100 people arrested in connection with the civil unrest and racial justice protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The court document said the FBI had maintained that the questions were likely to yield foreign intelligence, though the reasons given for that assessment have been largely redacted.
Another violation included an interrogation of 19,000 donors for an unnamed congressional campaign. Officials said the case involved a candidate who was unsuccessful and is not a sitting member of Congress.
Senior FBI officials spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity following the report’s release, attributing the majority of violations to staff confusion and a lack of common understanding about interrogation standards.
They also said the violations mainly occurred before the agency made several reforms, and said the number of inquiries about US citizens has dropped dramatically after a series of audits.
In the court document released Friday, a judge noted that the number of people with access to the database may need to be severely restricted if the abuse continues.