Report Discloses Unlawful “Backdoor Searches” of FISA Database

Julian SanchezThe Intelligence Community ’s annualStatistical Transparency Report was released earlier this month, and there ’s a significant piece of news buried in a footnote: On at least six occasions in 2018 and once in 2019, the government unlawfully reviewed wiretapped communications from a foreign intelligence database while pursuing ordinary criminal investigations unrelated to national security —something the previous year’s report claimed had never happened. The disclosure validates civil libertarian concerns about so‐​called “backdoor searches”: The use of broad foreign intelligence authorities nominally aimed at non‐​Americans outside the country to monitor Americans’ communications, circumventing the normal constitutional warrant process.First, some context. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress created in 2008, permits the National Security Agency to obtain sweeping general warrants from the secretive FISA Court, under which they may intercept the communications of non-U.S. persons who are outside the country without individualized authorization. This effectively codified an extralegal wiretapping program secretly approved by President George W. Bush shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Traditionally, when intelligence agencies conducted wiretaps inside the United States, they needed a particularized warrant naming a specific target as long as one end of the communication...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs