The FBI misused a digital foreign surveillance tool nearly 300,000 times on U.S. citizens, including January 6 insurrection suspects and protestors in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, according to a heavily-redacted court report obtained by multiple outlets Friday, as the FBI comes under increased pressure over its policies.
The FBI misused a foreign surveillance tool into U.S. citizens, according to a report released ... [+]
The report, from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, found a series of abuses of the FBI’s “querying procedures” between 2020 and 2021 that were “persistent and widespread,” and could require potential changes to the number of FBI personnel with access to a database intended to gather foreign intelligence called Section 702.
According to the report, the FBI failed to present a foreign intelligence purpose to use the database and instead used it to collect information on U.S. citizens, potentially shooting itself in the foot as the Biden Administration hopes to renew the federal act that created Section 702, which is set to lapse at the end of the year.
The FBI said it introduced corrective measures to resolve the issue in 2021, the Washington Post and Associated Press reported.
The finding also comes as the FBI wrangles with increased scrutiny from the right, following the release of a report this week from Special Counsel John Durham, which found the FBI should not have launched its investigation into allegations then-candidate Donald Trump had sought information from Russia on his opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
This is a developing story.