FBI improperly searched for the name of a US senator in an intelligence database after indications of a foreign threat against the lawmaker. The database which was created under Section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows US intelligence agencies to conduct broad searches to identify threats and leads related to foreign intelligence missions. The new court filing comes during a bitter battle in Congress over whether to reauthorize Section which is set to expire at the end of this year. While US agencies have touted improvement in properly using section as a vital tool to identify and combat foreign threats the law faces an uncertain future with lawmakers raising concerns over possible abuses. Other issues Contreras identified in his opinion included a May query for a US academic in which analysts failed to obtain preapprovals required under the FBIs new policies as well as instances in which nonUS persons were labeled as citizens mistakenly giving those people the extra protections of US citizen status. The newly revealed queries on lawmakers and a state judge however took place in June and October after many of the FBI reforms were implemented. Those new guidelines appear to be working more than of the time according to the judge who was tasked with monitoring law enforcements compliance with the rules. But the judge noted some instance in which federal agents improperly conducted queries. Those instances he wrote include conducting improper searches for the names of aUS senator a state senator and aState judge. The filing revealed a US analyst had information last year that a specific foreign intelligence service was targeting the US senator and state senator. This spring US intelligence. agencies released a report saying that the number of warrantless FBI searches of Americans electronic data under the intelligence program dropped sharply from millions of searches in to more than last year. And last month Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate announced a new three strike FBI policy that calls for analysts to be disciplined or even fired after three incidents in which they misused the program. The privacy debate centers on the collection of communications of Americans in touch with those foreign targets overseas from US telecommunications providers without a warrant. The FBI says it has dramatically reduced misuse of the program and that it has been doing a better job in applying the query standard. The FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that compliance is an ongoing endeavor and we recently announced new additional accountability measures. He also said that the FBI complies with the Rules of Engagement more than half the time and that the agency has been following the rules more than 90 per cent of the the time. It is not clear if the new guidelines applied to the standard for how queries are conducted on Americans which were not met in the senators case according to a court document. The court document did not provide more information about the incident. The judge said the FBI had not identified the lawmakers or the judge. It was written in April but released Friday as the FBI continues to implement strict reforms around the program which were aimed at curbing misuse. The federal government had improved its use of Section in his opinions which were written in March and April and released on Friday.
FBI searched for name of US senator facing foreign threat in latest improper use of intelligence database. FBI searched for names of U.S. senators facing foreign threats.
