Thread by @DawsonSField

Let's take a look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling that the FBI's use of FISA 702 Queries was unconstitutional violating the 4th Amendment and the FISA statute. This thread will look at the DOJ process of 'auditing' FBI compliance with FISA minimization rules

In the past the DOJ National Security Division gave the FISC a less than clear level of transparency into how the FBI used FISA 702. But in April of 2018, the Trump DOJ gave more details & lead the court to not like what it saw! Leading them to rule it unconstitutional.

First the FBI is running more than 3 million queries per year! But they are only auditing about 10% of those queries to ensure compliance with FISA. Which might be adequate if there were good processes in place, but it gets much worse!

Seems DOJ NSD has their Office of Intelligence audit about half of the FBI Field Offices each year. Though offices with high usage of FISA get audited every year, so others only get audited every 2-3 years. Leaving a large gap between a violation & a potential audit!

Someone was actually teaching people to conduct improper FISA Queries from 2011 until it was detected in 2017. The Trump DOJ reported it to the court in January 2018.

So how do they conduct the audit? FBI gives the auditors a list of searches from a subset of people with FISA access. Does the FBI exclude people they don't want audited from the list? It sounds like it, so the FBI chooses which 10% get audited.

They then look at a 90 day window of searches out of a period of up to 3 years. On top of that, FBI doesn't even document when a search is for a US Person identifier. So the auditors don't even know if they auditing a US Person query.

It gets worse, the FBI agents are not required to document why they conducted a specific query. So they just take their word that they had a reasonable reason for running it! But as the searches might be 3 years old, the agents can simply not recall why they did a search.

All of the other agencies require agents to document the lawful reason for conducting but the DOJ did not require the FBI to do so. Hard to identify illegal spying if you can't audit the illegal searches effectively.

FBI doesn't even document if the search is for foreign intelligence information or for evidence of a crime!

So the DOJ auditors are left to guess if the search was legally justified or not.
From agents who can't remember & didn't document why they conducted the search.

DOJ has always claimed "oversight of FBI's queries is substantial and effective," the FISC found that they don't even ensure that queries are documented less along audited in a substantial & effective manner! Even though DOJ does force NSA to comply with documentation!

For NSA DOJ audits ALL terms used for queries with written documentation in bi-monthly meetings. So every 2 months NSA must prove it's search terms were legal. But FBI agents, get asked every couple of years if they can remember violating FISA when they conducted a search!

The court believes that large violations of FISA have occurred that were not reported to the court because of the inadequate reporting & audit processes! I bet we will learn of many more!

This is just one small portion of the FISC ruling. Showing that the DOJ & FBI designed a system that could not detect let alone punish violations of FISA court approved minimization procedures.

Think it was an accident that in 2017 the FBI started giving more cases of violations to DOJ to audit?

It's amazing what might happen if you pick the 10% of agents that might be suspect in FISA abuse instead of not picking them...
#ButNothingsHappening

This has been handled in an amazing way. Instead of changing the rules at DOJ, which could be changed back, the Trump DOJ let a little sunlight shine on the actual process. Bringing the court into awareness that until 2017, DOJ was deceiving the court about #FISAAbuse.

This now sets court precedent that these searches were unconstitutional and illegal. Not just something that was legal but Trump's DOJ changed policy to hurt the FBI.

Can't even whine that Trump was taking away the FBI's ability to spy on the people he was colluding with!