FBI may have conducted as many as 3.4 million searches of Americans’ electronic data

Read more at Daily Mail

The Federal Bureau of Investigation may have conducted as many as 3.4 million searches of Americans’ elecronic data without a warrant last year.

The Wall Street Journal first cited the number Friday, saying it came from an annual report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The report doesn’t allege that the FBI was illegally or improperly searching American data, but still could alarm members of Congress over privacy concerns.

The 3.4 million amount ‘is certainly a large figure,’ a senior FBI official said, according to the Journal. ‘I am not going to pretend that it isn’t.’ Senior Biden administration officials told the paper that the actual number of searches is likely far lower. The officials explained that there are complexities in sorting American versus foreign individuals’ data.