The FBI has accessed the database 278,000 times in recent years, often without justification, according to declassified notices from the Secret Foreign Oversight Intelligence Court.
The database includes personal emails, text messages and other communications that the NSA says it analyzes when spying on aliens.
Although the FBI is supposed to use the NSA database only when investigating a foreign intelligence case, court opinions have shown that it has been used more often in domestic cases.
FBI agents conducted random searches during nationwide drug and gang investigations, the 2020 protests over the killing of African American George Floyd, and the January 6, 2021 attack by supporters of Donald Trump against the US Capitol.
In one case, an agent searched Congress’s database of 19,000 campaign donors.
In all of these cases, the intelligence court said, no foreign intelligence or domestic crime justified the FBI’s access to the database.
The documents came to light as Congress debated renewing Section 702, a law that allows the National Security Agency to access US-hosted internet accounts to monitor foreign intelligence targets.
Several lawmakers say the renewed law needs to be revised to better protect Americans’ personal information.
Intelligence agencies fear it will hamper their activities, but legal experts and Democrats said the revelations show the need for reform.
“The government has dramatically expanded its espionage under Section 702 in ways Congress never considered, but it refuses to tell Americans what it is doing,” said Patrick Twomey of the American Civil Liberty Union.
Senator Ron Wyden, a longtime critic of Section 702, said the intelligence court documents showed “appalling violations” of the law.
“If Section 702 is reinstated, there must be legal reforms to ensure that there are checks and balances to end these violations,” he added.
The problem arose nearly two decades ago when US intelligence agencies determined they needed to access the email and phone accounts of foreign intelligence targets hosted on computers in the United States.
The NSA and CIA are prohibited from spying on Americans or foreigners in the United States. In 2008, Congress therefore passed Section 702 to allow the NSA to access these accounts hosted in the United States.
Through this, the NSA also collects emails and phone messages from US citizens and resident aliens who communicate with NSA targets, or even mention an NSA target.
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