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A bombshell report from WIRED<\/a> reveals that two days after the U.S. Congress renewed and expanded<\/a> the mass-surveillance authority Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act<\/a>, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Paul Abbate, sent an email imploring agents to \u201cuse<\/i>\u201d Section 702 to search the communications of Americans collected under this authority \u201cto demonstrate why tools like this are essential\u201d to the FBI\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n In other words, an agency that has repeatedly<\/a> abused<\/a> this<\/a> exact<\/a> authority\u2014with 3.4 million<\/i><\/a> warrantless searches of Americans\u2019 communications in 2021 alone, thinks that the answer to its misuse of mass surveillance of Americans is to do more of it, not less. And it signals that the FBI believes it should do more surveillance\u2013not because of any pressing national security threat\u2014but because the FBI has an image problem.<\/p>\n The American people should feel a fiery volcano of white hot rage over this revelation. During the recent fight over Section 702\u2019s reauthorization, we all had to listen to the FBI and the rest of the Intelligence Community downplay their huge number of Section 702 abuses (but, never fear, they were fixed by drop-down menus<\/a>!). The government also trotted out every monster of the week<\/a> in incorrect<\/a> arguments seeking to undermine the bipartisan push for crucial reforms. Ultimately, after fighting to a draw in the House, Congress bent to the government\u2019s will: it not only failed to reform Section 702, but gave the government authority to use Section 702 in more cases.<\/a><\/p>\n Now, immediately after extracting this expanded power and fighting off sensible reforms, the FBI\u2019s leadership is urging the agency to \u201ccontinue to look for ways\u201d to make more <\/i>use of this controversial authority to surveil Americans, albeit with the fig leaf that it must be \u201clegal.\u201d And not because of an identifiable, pressing threat to national security, but to \u201cdemonstrate\u201d the importance of domestic law enforcement accessing the pool of data collected via mass surveillance. This is an insult to everyone who cares about accountability, civil liberties, and our ability to have a private conversation online. It also raises the question of whether the FBI is interested in keeping us safe or in merely justifying its own increased powers.<\/p>\n Section 702 allows the government to conduct surveillance inside the United States by vacuuming up digital communications so long as the surveillance is directed at foreigners currently located outside the United States. Section 702 prohibits the government from intentionally<\/i> targeting Americans. But, because we live in a globalized world where Americans constantly communicate with people (and<\/a> services<\/a>) outside the United States, the government routinely acquires millions of innocent Americans’ communications \u201cincidentally<\/a>\u201d under Section 702 surveillance. Not only does the government acquire these communications without a probable cause warrant, so long as the government can make out some connection to FISA\u2019s very broad definition of \u201cforeign intelligence,\u201d the government can then conduct warrantless \u201cbackdoor searches<\/a>\u201d of individual Americans\u2019 incidentally collected communications. 702 creates an end run around the Constitution for the FBI and, with the Abbate memo, they are being urged to use it as much as they can.<\/p>\n