By Cora Currier
The U.S. government can monitor journalists under a foreign
intelligence law that allows invasive spying and operates outside the
traditional court system, according to newly released documents.
Targeting members of the press under the law, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, requires approval from the Justice Department’s highest-ranking officials, the documents show.
In two 2015 memos for the FBI,
the attorney general spells out “procedures for processing Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act applications targeting known media
entities or known members of the media.” The guidelines say the attorney
general, the deputy attorney general, or their delegate must sign off
before the bureau can bring an application to the secretive panel of
judges who approves monitoring under the 1978 act, which governs
intelligence-related wiretapping and other surveillance carried out
domestically and against U.S. persons abroad.
The high level of supervision points to the controversy around
targeting members of the media at all. Prior to the release of these
documents, little was known about the use of FISA court orders against
journalists. Previous attention had been focused on the use of National
Security Letters against members of the press; the letters are
administrative orders with which the FBI can obtain certain phone and
financial records without a judge’s oversight. FISA court orders can
authorize much more invasive searches and collection, including the
content of communications, and do so through hearings conducted in
secret and outside the sort of adversarial judicial process that allows
journalists and other targets of regular criminal warrants to eventually
challenge their validity.
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Source: The Intercept_
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