The National Security Agency (NSA) collects large amounts of private information and communications from Americans’ and it turns out the FBI has been breaking the law and ignoring direct orders from a federal judge not to search through this information without a warrant.

Although a federal judge in 2018 and 2019 explained that such a use was an unconstitutional breach of privacy, a newly declassified report shows that the FBI requests access to masses of electronic communications harvested by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Daily Mail reports:

It shows the FBI has continued to perform warrantless searches through the NSA’s most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations, despite being told by a federal judge in 2018 and 2019 that such a use was an unconstitutional breach of privacy.

The FBI focused many of its warrantless searches – commonly referred to as backdoor queries – on suspected ‘far-right’ domestic terrorists, The Daily Beast reported.  

It’s unclear from the heavily-redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court report whether the FBI uncovered any criminal extremist behavior or made any arrests resulting from the searches.  

In its gathering of ‘foreign’ communications data, the NSA often sweeps up Americans’ communications, too.  

It’s unclear how many Americans had their data viewed by the FBI in its search for ‘racially motivated’ extremists. 

The FISA report did reveal that a single request for data to the NSA from an FBI analyst for information on a suspected domestic terrorists returned 33 hits. 

It’s not clear how many other requests were tied to the hunt for alleged racially motivated extremists, nor who at the FBI asked for the data or approved the request.

The FBI wouldn’t answer questions on specifics but a senior official told the Daily Mail that the FBI had taken ‘numerous steps’ to comply with the FISA court guidance over the past 18 months.

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