{"id":1491319,"date":"2022-05-25T08:59:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T12:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1491319"},"modified":"2022-05-25T08:59:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T12:59:40","slug":"report-fbi-spied-on-3-3-million-americans-without-a-warrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/report-fbi-spied-on-3-3-million-americans-without-a-warrant\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: FBI Spied on 3.3 Million Americans Without a Warrant"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Freport-fbi-spied-on-3-3-million-americans-without-a-warrant%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1491319&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"Raw-slyvem-0 bCYKCn\">\n<p>Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-fbi\">FBI<\/a> after court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans without a warrant.<\/p>\n<p>In a May 25 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked Wray to explain why his agency had wiretapped and gathered personal information on over 3.3 million Americans without a warrant (<a href=\"https:\/\/republicans-judiciary.house.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/2022-05-24-JDJ-MT-to-Wray-FISA.pdf\">pdf<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Limited authority to gather foreign intelligence information is granted by the\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-fisa\">FISA<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, section 702 of the bill says: \u201cthe Attorney General (AG) and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) may jointly authorize the targeting of (i) non-U.S. persons (ii) who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States (iii) to acquire foreign intelligence information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, this power can grant an expanding circle of possible searches to the FBI and other intel agencies, who can use the same power against American citizens who had any interaction with targeted foreigners.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, insight into how FISA has been used against American citizens has been limited and hidden behind classified reports.<\/p>\n<p>However, a November 2020 decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)\u2014which serves as a watchdog for U.S. intelligence agencies\u2014required that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report \u201cthe number of U.S. person queries run by the FBI against Section 702-acquired information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In accordance with these new requirements, ODNI\u2019s recently-released\u00a0Annual Statistical Transparency Report included data on how often the FBI gathered information on American citizens using section 702 in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>In total, queries against U.S. citizens came out to a jaw-dropping 3,394,053 searches. By comparison, only\u00a01,324,057 such queries were made in 2020, representing around a 250 percent increase during President Joe Biden\u2019s first year in office.<\/p>\n<p>According to ODNI more than half of these queries\u2014approximately 1.9 million\u2014were part of the larger investigation of alleged Russian attempts to target or weaken U.S. critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The ODNI report also admitted that on at least four occasions, the FBI failed to get FISC approval before accessing the contents of information collected under section 702.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>This is not the first time the FBI has been caught red-handed overstepping its legal authority under section 702.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2020, the FISC announced that\u00a0\u201cthe government \u2026 reported numerous incidents\u201d in which the FBI reviewed information gathered under section 702 without obtaining proper permission from the court.<\/p>\n<p>On other occasions, the FISC noted, the FBI used section 702 for issues entirely unrelated to foreign intelligence. These included queries for criminal investigations about healthcare fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone of these queries was related to national security, and they returned numerous Section 702-acquired products in response,\u201d the FISC noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRigorous Congressional oversight of the FBI\u2019s Section 702-related activities is essential given FBI\u2019s track record utilizing its FISA authorities,\u201d Jordan and Turner ruled in view of the FBI\u2019s past overreach.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3717421\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/03\/02\/wray-testifies--1200x753.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3717421\" src=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/03\/02\/wray-testifies--600x377.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"377\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington, on March 2, 2021. (Mandel Ngan-Pool\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>In their letter to Wray, Jordan and Turner laid out a laundry list of questions about the report, demanding further transparency and explanations on the revelation that the FBI has often overstepped its legal authority to spy on American citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Among other questions, they requested a full accounting of all\u00a03,394,053 citizens who showed up in FBI queries and \u201c[the] number of preliminary or full investigations into any U.S. citizens the FBI has initiated as a result of information obtained through any of these U.S. person queries, and the nature of the predication for each such investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They also asked for information on the 1.9 million Americans queried over alleged Russian efforts to compromise U.S. critical infrastructure. Specifically, they asked for, \u201cThe rationale for why these queries were found to be compliant with the FBI\u2019s Section 702 querying procedures [and the] total number of U.S. citizens the FBI identified as victims of these compromises(s) pursuant to these queries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition, they demanded \u201cA detailed statement about the FBI\u2019s investigation, including the status of the investigation and any information uncovered about the identity of the Russian actors and their involvement with or connection to the Russian government, if any.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, they asked for information gathered under FISA rules in the years between 2015 and 2020, as well as for an explanation of the FBI\u2019s overreach of authority on various occasions.<\/p>\n<p>The letter demands that Wray provide a written response by no later than 5 p.m. on June 7.<\/p>\n<p>FISA Section 702 was last authorized by Congress for a six-year period in 2018 and will be up for reauthorization in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-joseph-lord\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ttl7dayRJQ_WEB_JosephLord-copy.jpeg\" alt=\"Joseph Lord\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Joseph Lord is a congressional reporter for The Epoch Times.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI after court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}