On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on the issue of federal surveillance laws and their impact on American citizens, according to a report from The Gateway Pundit (TGP).
During the hearing, Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz disclosed some alarming statistics regarding the FBI’s warrantless “backdoor searches” of Americans’ communications.
In response to a question posed by Florida Representative Matt Gaetz (R), Horowitz confirmed that the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of Americans’ communications.
Rep. Gaetz inquired, “How should the public think about those?”
Horowitz responded, “Well, I think what we’ve seen in the various public reports, and I’m limited in what I can say about what’s public, which I think is one of the issues, by the way, that’s worth talking about, is transparency here.”
The Inspector General further elaborated on the troubling error rate involved in these searches.
He stated, “It’s obviously very concerning that there’s that volume of searches and particularly concerning the error rate that was reported on in the last two years in the public reporting.”
According to Horowitz, approximately 30% of these searches, or over a million instances, were erroneous.
In an attempt to quantify the magnitude of the issue, Florida’s Gaetz pointed out, “I’m a lawyer, not a mathematician, but 3.4 million about 30%, you’re talking about seven figures of error in terms of the searches.”
The hearing also addressed the lack of clarity regarding the number of individuals authorized to use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to perform “backdoor searches” on Americans’ communications.
When questioned on this subject, no one present seemed to have a definitive answer, TGP points out.
