Every 90 days for the past seven years the FBI has obtained secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) orders compelling telecommunications companies to provide the government with the toll billing records of every American’s telephone calls, domestic and international, on an ongoing daily basis. Other programs have collected...Learn More

Arab, Middle-Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities in the U.S. have faced the brunt of the FBI’s overzealous applications of its expanded authoritiessince 9/11. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, acting out of fear and ignorance, FBI agents and other federal officials arrested hundreds of Middle-Eastern immigrants, based...Learn More

B. Suppressing Government WhistleblowersThe FBI has a notorious record of retaliating against FBI employees who report misconduct or abuse in the FBI and has used aggressive leak investigations to suppress other government whistleblowers. Congress exempted the FBI from the requirements of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and instead...Learn More

Several audits by the GAO and agency IGs have documented the government’s mismanagement of its terrorist watch lists over many years.283 A 2009 DOJ IG audit found:...the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others in a timely fashion, and did not update or remove watchlist...Learn More

The ACLU obtained through FOIA the fifth version of an FBI interrogation manual for conducting custodial interrogations in overseas environments, which was written by a supervisor in the FBI’s counterterrorism division in 2011 (the third version was copyrighted in 2010, it is unknown when the earlier versions were published).278 The manual is...Learn More

On September 4, 2013,James B. Comey was sworn in as the 7th director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey is taking the helm of an agency that has transformed during the 12-year term of Director Robert S. Mueller III into a domestic intelligence and law enforcement agency of unprecedented power and international reach. Today’s FBI...Learn More

1. Congress must intensify its oversight of all FBI policies and practices, particularly those that implicate Americans’ constitutional rights. The collection, retention, and sharing of personally identifying information about Americans without facts establishing a reasonable indication of criminal activity poses serious risks to liberty and...Learn More

C. FBI Profiling Based on Race, Ethnicity, Religion and National OriginIronically, the FBI’s authority to profile based on race, ethnicity, religion, and national origin was enhanced by Justice Department guidance that claimed to ban profiling in federal law enforcement. When issuing the Justice Department Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by...Learn More

D. Unrestrained Data Collection and Data MiningThe FBI has also claimed the authority to sweep up voluminous amounts of information independent of assessments or investigations. The FBI obtains this data—often containing personally identifiable information—from open or public source materials; federal, state, or local government databases or...Learn More

In the aftermath of the September 11th attacksthe FBI sought to rid itself of these legal restraints and expand its investigative and intelligence collection capabilities. Acting during a period of fear and uncertainty, Congress, the White House, and the attorney general gave the FBI enhanced investigative and surveillance authorities to protect...Learn More

1. Targeting JournalistsThe FBI’s overzealous pursuit of government whistleblowers has also resulted in the inappropriate targeting of journalists for investigation, thereby chilling press freedoms. In 2010, the Inspector General reported that the FBI used an illegal “exigent letter” to obtain the telephone records of seven New York Times and...Learn More

1. The AG must revise the Justice Department Guidance Regarding the Use of Race in Federal Law Enforcement to: 1) remove the national security and border integrity exemptions; 2) prohibit profiling by religion or national origin; 3) clarify that the ban on profiling applies to intelligence activities as well as investigative activities; 4)...Learn More