The FBI's lawless spying on America

In the consequences of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush privately ordered a warrantless wiretapping program that was against the law. The program that was code-named Stellarwind violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 by permitting telephone call and electronic communications to or from a targeted foreign individual to be scooped up by United States federal government firms and maintained in a database, without a warrant, even if a U.S. individual's interactions were by the way collected.

Congress decided in 2008 to officially legislate the prohibited practice by modifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. What is now referred to as Section 702 has been reauthorized occasionally and next expires on Dec. 31 of this year.

Severe abuses and errors under Section 702 have been documented in multiple reports by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and in December, a required semiannual evaluation of the government's compliance with Section 702's procedures and guidelines was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The ODNI report mentioned that in 2021, FBI workers performed almost 3.4 million U.S. individuals questions of the surveillance database, and that a number of these searches were made in mistake. The report characterized these offenses of the rights of innocent Americans as "misunderstandings.".

During an April 27 hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee, Inspector General Horowitz testified that the FBI conducted more than 1 million trick database searches erroneously in 2021, an error rate of about 30 percent.

Both Republican committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan and Democratic ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler concurred that Americans' interactions required to be better safeguarded from federal government spying.

Congress might pass a new law including safeguards such as needing probable cause for searches, or it could just let Section 702 end. President Biden is promoting the law to be restored.

However Section 702 ought to not be renewed. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution checks out, "The right of the people to be safe and secure in their persons, documents, effects, and homes, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be broken, and no Warrants shall issue, however upon likely cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly explaining the location to be searched, and the individuals or things to be taken.".

That's the law, and it's time the federal government began obeying it.