FBI Practices for Intercepted Emails Violated 4th Amendment, Judge Ruled

A federal judge secretly ruled last year that the F.B.I.’s procedures for searching for Americans’ emails within a repository of intercepted messages that were gathered without a warrant violated Fourth Amendment privacy rights, newly declassified files showed.

The F.B.I. improperly searched the repository for information involving large numbers of Americans who fit within general categories but against whom there was no individualized basis for suspicion. In a twist, one March 2017 search used more than 70,000 identifiers, like email addresses, linked to the F.B.I.’s own work force.

Source: F.B.I. Practices for Intercepted Emails Violated 4th Amendment, Judge Ruled – The New York Times