Court Rules FBI’s Warrantless Searches Are Illegal ⇥ arstechnica.com

Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica:

It’s official: The FBI’s warrantless searches of communications seized to protect US national security have at last been ruled unconstitutional and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In a major December ruling made public this week, US District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall settled one of the biggest debates about feared government overreach that has prompted calls to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for more than a decade.

Critics’ primary concern was whether the FBI needed a warrant to search and query Americans’ communications that are often incidentally, inadvertently, or mistakenly seized during investigations of suspected foreign terrorists.

Some good news, American friends.

In 2023, then-FBI director Christopher Wray said a warrant “would amount to a de facto ban, because query applications either would not meet the legal standard to win court approval; or” because of the time required to meet legal obligations. To be sure, I bet there are lots of crimes the FBI could catch if it did more illegal stuff.