United States: FBI still spying on Americans' communications
The FBI logo on the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington © ANDREW HARRER, BLOOMBERG ARCHIVES
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1 min
In the United States, the FBI's surveillance methods continue to be controversial. According to new court documents, the federal agency used a surveillance program against thousands of U.S. citizens. A violation of the rules put in place, while the use of this program is rightly questioned by some elected officials.
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With our correspondent in Washington, Loubna Anaki
The documents made public come from the court responsible for overseeing espionage activities. We discover that the FBI had access to the emails, photos, videos, conversations of 278 thousand Americans. And this by using a surveillance program set up to combat foreign threats. Which is a problem, because U.S. citizens enjoy legal protections when it comes to privacy.
A clear violation of the procedures put in place. These requests have targeted people arrested on the sidelines of the anti-racist protests that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020, but also victims of crime or participants in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In his submissions, the judge who wrote these documents explains that, since these events, the FBI has tightened controls and that the number of non-compliant surveillance operations has decreased, without giving further details.
These revelations could not have come at a worse time for the FBI at a time when the law that allows the use of this program is set to expire. That risks giving weight to opponents as the Biden administration tries to renew the program.
In Congress, many Republican and Democratic elected officials are calling for reform and stricter controls.
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