FBI Section 702 query violations
FBI Section 702 query violations were a series of compliance failures by the Federal Bureau of Investigation involving warrantless searches of communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Between 2020 and early 2022, Bureau personnel conducted more than 278,000 searches of surveillance databases that did not meet legal standards.
The queries targeted Black Lives Matter protesters, January 6 Capitol attack participants, congressional campaign donors, journalists, members of Congress, and crime victims. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court characterized these as "persistent and widespread violations". The revelations, disclosed publicly in May and July 2023 through declassified FISC opinions, triggered congressional debate over Section 702's April 2024 reauthorization. A proposed warrant requirement for such searches failed by a single vote in the House of Representatives.
Background
Section 702 of FISA, enacted in 2008 as part of the FISA Amendments Act, authorizes targeted intelligence collection of foreign intelligence information from non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. Unlike traditional FISA warrants requiring individualized probable cause determinations, Section 702 operates through annual certifications approved by the FISC, which reviews general targeting, minimization, and querying procedures rather than individual surveillance targets. The National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Counterterrorism Center collect communications through two primary methods: PRISM and upstream collection.Under the statute, intentionally targeting U.S. persons or anyone located in the United States or "reverse targeting" or surveilling foreigners in order to collect information about Americans is prohibited. However, when foreigners under Section 702 surveillance communicate with Americans, those U.S. person communications are "incidentally collected" and stored in intelligence databases. Intelligence agencies can then query these databases using American identifiers. These are known as "backdoor searches" or "U.S. person queries" to retrieve Americans' communications without obtaining warrants. By 2022, approximately 246,000 foreign targets were under Section 702 surveillance, increasing to 292,000 by 2024.
Intelligence value
The U.S. intelligence community and successive presidential administrations have described Section 702 as among the most valuable intelligence collection authorities available. FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress in December 2023 that Section 702 had helped disrupt terrorist attacks, identify foreign spies, and track fentanyl shipments.In a joint statement, DNI Avril Haines and NSA Director Paul Nakasone called Section 702 a source of "critical foreign intelligence" on threats including terrorism, weapons proliferation, and hostile cyber activities. CIA Director William Burns said the program had been crucial for stopping drug cartels moving fentanyl across the U.S. border, while Haines told lawmakers the law had helped counter China's spying efforts.
During the April 2024 reauthorization debate, intelligence officials briefed House members on specific cases including identification of a Chinese fentanyl precursor shipment 48 hours before arrival and disruption of a plot by Iranian operatives to assassinate a U.S. official on American soil. Attorney General Merrick Garland and national security adviser Jake Sullivan personally made calls to legislators urging them to vote against an amendment curtailing it.
Supporters argued that the FBI's U.S. person queries despite compliance failures produced actionable intelligence. In 2023, the FBI stated queries helped identify ransomware actors targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and foreign agents seeking to recruit Americans with security clearances. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, while recommending reforms, concluded that Section 702 "remains highly valuable to protect national security" and "has proven to be a valuable tool in the government's efforts to protect national security".
Critics countered that the intelligence community had not identified specific cases where warrantless searches of Americans' communications, rather than foreign target surveillance, proved essential to preventing attacks. They argued warrant requirements would not impede legitimate intelligence collection.
Scale and timeline of violations
Early violations (2017–2018)
In 2019, the FISC rebuked the FBI for tens of thousands of improper searches.These included over 70,000 queries in March 2017 related to security reviews of people requiring FBI building access and 6,800 Social Security number queries on a single day in December 2017.Peak violation period (2020–2021)
Compliance problems peaked between late 2020 and early 2021. Bureau analysts ran more than 278,000 queries of Section 702 data that the Department of Justice determined violated FBI standards. The searches failed to meet the legal standard requiring queries be "reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime".Searches of political figures and donors
News reports on the declassified court documents revealed that an FBI analyst ran a batch query of over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign. According to The Boston Globe, the analyst claimed the campaign was a target of foreign influence, but Justice Department reviewers determined only eight of the 19,000 identifiers had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities. The identity of the congressional campaign was not publicly disclosed.According to 2023 news reports on a declassified ODNI compliance report, in early 2039 FBI personnel had conducted multiple queries on an unnamed congressman using only his last name, which reviewers deemed "overly broad". Representative Darin LaHood said in March 2023 that he believed he was a member of Congress improperly queried by the FBI. He stated at a House Intelligence Committee hearing: "It is my opinion that the member of Congress that was wrongfully queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me."
Racial justice protesters
Agents queried 133 people arrested during protests following George Floyd's death in late May 2020. The FBI initially defended these searches as compliant but later reversed position after a Justice Department review found the queries lacked specific connections to terrorist-related activity.January 6 Capitol attack participants
Bureau staff ran more than 20,000 queries on individuals affiliated with groups suspected of involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Justice Department later determined these searches were not likely to find foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime. Senior FBI officials attributed the violations to "confusion among the workforce and a lack of common understanding about the querying standards".Query volume and decline
FBI searches for Americans' information dropped 94% over a 12-month period ending in November 2022, falling from 3.4 million to approximately 204,000 according to an Office of the Director of National Intelligence transparency report. The decline followed changes adopted in summer 2021 after a FISC judge and the Justice Department inspector general accused the FBI of abusing its Section 702 authority.The downward trend continued in subsequent years. Query numbers fell to approximately 119,000 in 2022, then to 57,000 in 2023. By 2024, queries had dropped to approximately 5,500.
An FBI official told reporters that an internal audit of a representative sample of searches showed an increased compliance rate from 82% before the reforms were implemented to 96% afterward.
Searches of a U.S. Senator and state officials (2022)
A court opinion released July 21, 2023, disclosed that violations involving high-profile targets continued after the FBI implemented reforms. In June 2022, an FBI analyst ran queries using the last names of a sitting U.S. Senator and a state senator "without further limitation". The analyst claimed a foreign intelligence service was targeting those legislators, but the Justice Department's National Security Division determined the searches did not meet FBI standards. The FBI notified the U.S. Senator but not the state senator; the identities of both officials were not publicly disclosed.A separate violation occurred in October 2022, when an FBI specialist queried the Social Security number of a state judge who had complained to the Bureau about alleged civil rights violations by a municipal police chief. The search lacked adequate justification and did not receive the pre-approval required for politically sensitive queries. The FBI did not notify the judge.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court findings
The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2019 that previously secret court rulings had rebuked the FBI for tens of thousands of improper searches during 2017 and 2018. According to Just Security's analysis of a November 2020 ruling, the court found FBI queries had been used in investigations unrelated to foreign surveillance, including healthcare fraud, organized crime, and public corruption cases.In May 2023, declassified court documents revealed the 278,000 non-compliant queries from 2020-2021. The court characterized the violations as "persistent and widespread".
A second declassified opinion released in July 2023 revealed additional violations from 2022 involving searches of a U.S. Senator, a state senator, and a state judge.
An October 2018 opinion by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who serves on the FISA court, said FBI procedures "not consistent with the Fourth Amendment" when applying a "totality of circumstances" standard balancing privacy intrusion against government interests. The court criticized the "broad and apparently suspicionless nature" of batch queries and noted FBI's "lack of common understanding" of querying standards.
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates argued that searching through Section 702 databases for particular Americans' communications constitutes a "search" under the Fourth Amendment requiring a warrant based on probable cause.