Just declassified: US senator caught up in Section 702 FBI surveillance dragnet
surveillance reform legislation"in the coming weeks," and the court documents released today will likely add momentum to the calls for reform.In the case of the senator and state senator, an FBI worker ran a surveillance database search on them that was deemed a breach of policy by the Dept of Justice's National Security Division .
"In June 2022, an analyst conducted four queries of Section 702 information using the last names of a US Senator and a state senator," according to the heavily redacted FISC opinion issued in April []."The analyst had information that a specific foreign intelligence service was targeting those legislators, but NSD determined that the querying standard was not satisfied."
Additionally, in October 2022, an FBI specialist broke the rules by running"a query using the Social Security number of a state judge who 'had complained to FBI about alleged civil rights violation perpetrated by a municipal chief of police.'" The opinion also noted another Section 702 violation concerning a search of one of the January 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol building.