FISA Court Blasted “FBI’s Apparent Disregard For Rules”; Illegally Shared Spy Data With “Private Contractors”

Earlier this week we highlighted sections of a recently unclassified FISA Court order which found that the Obama administration routinely conducted “widespread” illegal searches of American citizens, an issue which the court described as a “serious fourth amendment issue” (see “FISA Court Finds “Serious Fourth Amendment Issue” In Obama’s “Widespread” Illegal Searches Of American Citizens“).
Today, as highlighted by Circa, we find the that FBI, led by James Comey, was one of the biggest offenders when it came to improper usage of foreign-sourced intelligence on American citizens. Per the FISA court order (which can be found here), the DOJ conducted a review of the FBI’s handling of so-called “Section 702-acquired information” beginning on March 9, 2016 and what that review found was fairly disturbing.
Among other things, the DOJ found that the FBI routinely shared “raw FISA information” on American citizens with “private contractors”…to paraphrase, the FBI took illegally sourced intelligence on American citizens (no warrants required) and shared it with random private citizens working at non-government firms.
“On March 9, 2016, DOJ oversight personnel conducting a minimization review at the FBI’s [redacted] learned that the FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, includined but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to [redacted]…largely staffed by private contractors.”

This post was published at Zero Hedge on May 26, 2017.