such third-party sharing is a huge political concern now as Congress and intelligence community leaders try to stop the flow of classified information to parties that could illegally disclose or misuse it, such as the recent leak that disclosed intercepted communications between the Russian ambassador and Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
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The court’s memo suggested the FBI’s sharing of raw intelligence to third parties, at the time, had good law enforcement intentions but bad judgment and inadequate training.
“Nonetheless, the above described practices violated the governing minimization procedures,” the court chided.
A footnote in the ruling stated one instance of improper sharing was likely intentional.
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“Improper access” to NSA spy data for FBI contractors “seems to have been the result of deliberate decision-making,” the court noted.
The recently unsealed ruling also revealed the FBI is investigating more cases of possible improper sharing with private parties that recently have come to light.
The government “is investigating whether there have been similar cases in which the FBI improperly afforded non-FBI personnel access to raw FISA-acquired information on FBI systems,” the court warned.
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The ruling cited other FBI failures in handling Section 702 intel, including retaining data on computer storage systems “in violation of applicable minimization requirements.”
Among the most serious additional concerns was the FBI’s failure for more than two years to establish review teams to ensure intercepts between targets and their lawyers aren’t violating the attorney-client privilege.
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“Failures of the FBI to comply with this ‘review team’ requirement for particular targets have been focus of the FISC’s (FISA’s?) concerns since 2014,” the court noted.
The FBI said it is trying to resolve the deficiencies with aggressive training of agents.
That admission of
inadequate training directly undercut Comey’s testimony earlier this month when questioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
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“Nobody gets to see FISA information of any kind unless they've had the appropriate training and have the appropriate oversight,” the soon-to-be-fired FBI director assured lawmakers.
The struggle for the intelligence court and lawmakers in providing future oversight will be where to set more limits without hampering counterterrorism effort
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The FBI told Circa in a statement, "As indicated in its opinion, the Court determined that the past and current standard minimization procedures are consistent with the Fourth Amendment and met the statutory definition of those procedures under Section 702."
Jeffress, however, warned in her 2015 brief of another dynamic that will pose a challenge too,
an FBI culture to use a tool more just because it can.
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“These scenarios suggest a potentially very large and broad scope of incidental collection of communications between a lawful target and U.S. persons that are not the type of communications Section 702 was designed to collect,” she told the court in a written memo.
And when questioned at a subsequent hearing, Jeffress observed: “I don’t think that the FBI will voluntarily set limits on its querying procedures, because law enforcement agencies tend not to take steps to restrict or limit what they can do, for obvious reasons.”
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Circa congressional correspondent Kellan Howell contributed to this story.
http://circa.com/politics/declassif...ed-spy-data-on-americans-with-private-parties
