The FBI violated civil liberties against George Floyd protesters and Jan. 6 participants through the improper use of a surveillance tool, according to a filing from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) unsealed Friday, that undercuts claims by FBI Director Christopher Wray that the bureau had reformed its process for using it.

The revelation is certain to place pressure on Congress, which must decide this year whether to renew the law permitting the bureau’s use of the Section 702 database. The April 2022 opinion from the FISC, which the Washington Post obtained, indicated that the bureau had improperly made use of the database more than 278,000 times, including against the aforementioned groups, crime victims, and political donors.

[To quote the movie “Wild Things”: Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, but three times is enemy action. Imagine what 278,000 times represents. The FBI clearly cannot be trusted with this authority. It is high time for that authority to end, and if we need a separate counterintelligence agency to do the work, then we can figure that out. The FBI is far too compromised and politicized to have both law enforcement and counter-intelligence authorities at the same time. — Ed]