Security News > 2020 > January > FBI Tightening Up Wiretap Protocols After Watchdog Report
The FBI laid out new protocols Friday for how it conducts electronic surveillance in national security cases, responding to a Justice Department inspector general report that harshly criticized the bureau's handling of the Russia investigation.
The filing comes one month after the chief judge of the surveillance court - in a rare public directive - ordered the FBI to say how it would correct shortcomings identified in the watchdog report on the bureau's investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
The inspector general report found that FBI applications to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, omitted key information about the credibility of sources it was relying on.
The FBI is also revising a form used to request and renew surveillance so as to "Elicit information that may undermine probable cause."
Some Democrats who had already been skeptical of the FBI's expansive surveillance authorities raised fresh concerns, while Republican allies of Trump held up the report to argue that agents had overstepped their bounds and unfairly treated a campaign aide.