FBI Conducted Potentially Millions of Searches of Americans’ Data Last Year

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation performed potentially millions of searches of American electronic data in 2021 without a warrant, US intelligence officials said April 29, a revelation likely to stoke longstanding concerns in Congress about government surveillance and privacy. An annual report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed that the FBI conducted as many as 3.4 million searches of US data that had been previously collected by the National Security Agency. The report doesn’t allege the FBI was routinely searching American data improperly or illegally. The disclosure of the searches marks the first time a US intelligence agency has published an accounting, however imprecise, of the FBI’s grabs of American data through a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that governs some foreign intelligence gathering. The section of FISA that authorizes the FBI’s activity, known as Section 702, is due to expire in 2023.


FBI Conducted Potentially Millions of Searches of Americans’ Data Last Year, Report Says