[Infowarrior] - F.B.I. Is Assuming a Larger Surveillance Role, Report Shows

[Richard Forno]

F.B.I. Is Assuming a Larger Surveillance Role, Report Shows

By CHARLIE SAVAGEJAN. 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — Although the government’s warrantless surveillance program is associated with the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gradually become a significant player in administering it, a newly declassified report shows.

In 2008, according to the report, the F.B.I. assumed the power to review email accounts the N.S.A. wanted to collect through the “Prism” system, which collects emails of foreigners from providers like Yahoo and Google. The bureau’s top lawyer, Valerie E. Caproni, who is now a Federal District Court judge, developed procedures to make sure no such accounts belonged to Americans.Then, in October 2009, the F.B.I. started retaining copies of unprocessed communications gathered without a warrant to analyze for its own purposes. And in April 2012, the bureau began nominating new email accounts and phone numbers belonging to foreigners for collection, including through the N.S.A.’s “upstream” system, which collects communications transiting network switches.

That information is in a 231-page study by the Justice Department’s inspector general about the F.B.I.’s activities under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which authorized the surveillance program. The report was entirely classified when completed in September 2012. But the government has now made a semi-redacted version of the report public in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times.

The Times filed the lawsuit following a wave of declassifications about government surveillance activities in response to leaks by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden.

But parts of the report remained heavily redacted. The report was delivered late Friday to The Times. In it, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, concluded that the F.B.I. was doing a good job in making sure that the email accounts targeted for warrantless collection belonged to noncitizens abroad.

< - >

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/us/politics/beyond-nsa-fbi-is-assuming-a-larger-surveillance-role-report-shows.html

--
It's better to burn out than fade away.