The FBI had a leading role in the NSA’s email surveillance program

A newly declassified report from the Department of Justice has revealed that the FBI actually had a significant role in the NSA’s email surveillance program. The 231-page study, which was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows us that the FBI started to review the NSA’s PRISM program back in 2008, and even developed some of the protocols for the program. 

Although the government’s warrantless surveillance program is associated with the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gradually become a significant player in administering it, a newly declassified report shows. In 2008, according to the report, the F.B.I. assumed the power to review email accounts the N.S.A. wanted to collect through the “Prism” system, which collects emails of foreigners from providers like Yahoo and Google. The bureau’s top lawyer, Valerie E. Caproni, who is now a Federal District Court judge, developed procedures to make sure no such accounts belonged to Americans. Then, in October 2009, the F.B.I. started retaining copies of unprocessed communications gathered without a warrant to analyze for its own purposes. And in April 2012, the bureau began nominating new email accounts and phone numbers belonging to foreigners for collection, including through the N.S.A.’s “upstream” system, which collects communications transiting network switches.