来源：《洛杉矶时报》
刊登日期：2021年5月2日
For the second time in two years, a federal judge has faulted the FBI for improperly searching for information about Americans amid the emails, texts and other communications collected by a foreign intelligence surveillance program, even as he reauthorized the program. If the FBI continues to defy privacy protections, Congress must act.
一名联邦法官两年来第二次，在他重新授权时，指责联邦调查局(FBI)在一个外国情报监视项目收集的电子邮件、短信和其他通信信息中不当搜索有关美国人的信息。如果联邦调查局继续无视隐私保护，国会必须采取行动。
In an opinion from November made public last week, James E. Boasberg, the judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, found that FBI personnel on several occasions had violated the rules for searching communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
外国情报监视法庭法官詹姆斯·e·博斯伯格在上周公开的一份11月意见书中表示，FBI人员多次违反了《外国情报监视法》第702条规定的通信搜索规则。
That law allows the National Security Agency to scoop up, without a warrant, electronic communications of foreigners located outside the United States. The law prohibits the targeting of Americans; but because foreign targets may be in contact with Americans, sensitive personal information about people in this country can be amassed in the vast Section 702 database and sometimes searched.
该法律允许美国国家安全局在没有搜查令的情况下，获取位于美国境外的外国人的电子通讯信息。该法律禁止针对美国人；但由于外国目标可能与美国人有联系，美国人的敏感个人信息可能被收集在庞大的702数据库中，有时会被搜索。
Because such “backdoor” searches raise serious 4th Amendment concerns, the FBI is limited in its ability to “query” the database.
由于这种“后门”搜索引起了可能违反第四修正案的严重关切，联邦调查局“查询”数据库的能力受到了限制。
Yet Boasberg found “apparent widespread violations of the querying standard.” Nevertheless, he extended the program for another year, noting that the violations occurred before the bureau had instituted changes in its querying system and before personnel were fully retrained.
然而，博斯伯格发现“明显普遍存在违反查询标准的情况”。尽管如此，他将该项目又延长了一年，并指出，这些违规行为发生在FBI对其查询系统进行更改之前，以及人员完全接受再培训之前。
It’s hard to know precisely how often information about Americans gathered as part of foreign-intelligence collection leads to criminal prosecutions. But even if such incidents are rare, they represent an unacceptable use of information obtained without a warrant. And even when no criminal prosecution results, the fact that Americans’ texts and emails can be warehoused by the government and accessed by investigators requires that law enforcement personnel strictly adhere to privacy protections.
很难确切地知道，作为外国情报收集的一部分而收集到的有关美国人的信息有多少会导致刑事起诉。但即使这类事件很少见，这也代表了对没有搜查令而获得的信息的使用是不可接受的。而且，即使没有刑事起诉结果，美国人的短信和电子邮件可以被政府储存并由调查人员访问，这一事实也要求执法人员严格遵守隐私保护。
In 2018 when Congress extended Section 702 for another six years, it included some modest protections for privacy. If the FBI can’t be trusted to follow the rules, Congress should impose even tougher restraints.
2018年，国会将第702条延长了6年，其中包括一些对隐私的适度保护。如果不能相信联邦调查局会遵守这些规定，国会应该施加更严厉的限制。
It’s possible to imagine emergencies in which the FBI might want to search for information about an American using data collected under Section 702. Current law allows the FBI to read the contents of some communications involving Americans without a court order if the information could help avert a serious threat of harm. A similar exception could be made to a prohibition on searching the database.
可以想象，在紧急情况下，联邦调查局(FBI)可能希望使用根据702条款收集的数据来搜索有关美国人的信息。目前的法律允许联邦调查局在没有法院命令的情况下阅读涉及美国人的一些通信内容，如果这些信息有助于避免严重的伤害威胁。可以对禁止搜索数据库作出类似的例外。
But, as a general rule, the FBI must not search this treasure-house of personal information about Americans without a warrant. Collecting foreign intelligence to keep American safe cannot come at the expense of Americans’ constitutional rights.