FBI changes privacy rules for accessing NSA data

The classified revisions were accepted by the secret US court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies’ broad surveillance powers. The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA’s sweeping “Prism” program to collect internet data.
A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Group (PCLOB), alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices.

The watchdog confirmed in a 2014 report that the FBI is allowed direct access to the NSA’s massive collections of international emails, texts and phone calls – which often include Americans on one end of the conversation. The activists also expressed concern that the FBI’s “minimization” rules, for removing or limiting sensitive data that could identify Americans, did not reflect the bureau’s easy access to the NSA’s collected international communications.

The reference to supervisory approval suggests the FBI may not require court approval for their searches – unlike the new system Congress enacted last year for NSA or FBI acquisition of US phone metadata in terrorism or espionage cases.

Privacy advocates say that this leeway for searches that NSA and FBI officials enjoy is a backdoor around warrants that the law should require. While the NSA performs warrantless collection, internal rules permit the FBI to nominate surveillance targets. Those targets are supposed to be non-Americans abroad, but Americans’ data is often swept up in the surveillance.