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Repeal the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Objectivessince it is never not used unconstitutionally.
The Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated this audit to evaluate the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) execution of and compliance with its factual accuracy review procedures (“Woods Procedures”) for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications. The OIG also assessed the DOJ National Security Division’s (NSD) oversight of the FISA application accuracy process.
Results in Brief
The FBI’s Woods Procedures are designed to ensure FISA applications are “scrupulously accurate” and require agents to document support for all factual assertions contained in them. However, our audit found numerous instances where this did not occur. In March 2020, we issued a Management Advisory Memorandum (MAM) to report that our audit had identified Woods Procedures non-compliance in all 29 FISA applications we reviewed, which were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) between fiscal years 2015 and 2019. DOJ thereafter notified the FISC of 209 errors in those applications, 4 of which DOJ deemed material. Our further audit work identified over 200 additional instances of Woods Procedures noncompliance—where Woods Files did not contain adequate supporting documentation for statements in the 29 applications—although the FBI and NSD subsequently confirmed the existence of available support elsewhere. We also identified at least 183 FISA applications for which the required Woods File was missing or incomplete.
The FBI and DOJ are implementing important reforms as a result of our prior FISA reports. However, we believe additional action is necessary to ensure rigorous supervisory review and to further strengthen Woods Procedures oversight to reduce the risk of erroneous information being included in FISA applications, which can lead to faulty probable cause determinations and infringement of U.S. persons’ civil liberties.
pipe up any time....
