[Infowarrior] - FBI’s Use Of Controversial Patriot Act Section Is Expanding

[Richard Forno]

FBI’s Use Of Controversial Patriot Act Section Is Expanding

Lower legal threshold and wider availability of electronic information cited in report on greater use of Section 215
Devlin Barrett
May 21, 2015 11:51 a.m. ET

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbis-use-of-controversial-patriot-act-section-is-expanding-1432223491

The Federal Bureau of Investigation used a controversial section of the Patriot Act to gather information more than 50 times in a three-year period, according to a new internal review released as Congress debates whether to let the law expire.

The FBI’s use of section 215 of the Patriot Act “continues to expand,” according to the report released Thursday by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The expansion is in part because the legal threshold for its use has been lowered and because “society’s use of the Internet have also expanded the quantity and quality of electronic information available to the FBI,’’ the report states.

Section 215 authorizes the government to collect “tangible things” such as business records with an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The types of information sought with such orders range from “hard copy reproductions of business ledgers and receipts to gigabytes of metadata and other electronic information,’’ the report found. The FBI has been “broadening the scope of materials sought in applications,’’ in part because they are not limited to requesting information only about suspects.

The FBI uses section 215, the report said, “in investigations of groups comprised of unknown members and to obtain information in bulk concerning persons who are not the subjects of or associated with any FBI investigation.’’

Section 215 is due to expire June 1 and is widely expected to lapse given deep concerns among lawmakers about the scope and breadth of the records-collection it is enabling. That section of the Patriot Act provides the legal foundation for the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone records, which civil liberties groups charge is a violation of Constitutional privacy protections. Lawmakers are debating whether to re-authorize it, scale it back, or let it expire. If it lapses, law enforcement’s ability to collect information could be limited.

As lawmakers weigh the issue, senior FBI officials have begun to argue publicly that while the phone program is useful to hunting terrorists, the other work done under the authority of Section 215 is more important and must be preserved to effectively investigate terror and spy suspects.

Thursday’s report, which studied the FBI’s use of the law for the years 2007 through 2009, said the FBI often uses Section 215 to obtain Internet records, particularly when the companies holding such data are reluctant to provide the information without a court order.

“The agents we interviewed did not identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to section 215 orders, but told us that the material produced... was  valuable in that it was used to support other investigative requests, develop investigative leads, and corroborate other information,’’ the report concluded.

The inspector general’s report was delayed, first by the reluctance of the FBI to share information with investigators, and then by a classification review, according to other documents and public testimony. A classified version of the report was shared with lawmakers months ago, officials said.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett at wsj.com

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