Last month, the FBI created a national online database to finally start coordinating law enforcement reports about "swatting" attacks nationwide, NBC News reported yesterday.
Swatting is a form of domestic terrorism that is sometimes deadly and has become more widespread in the US, according to a March report from Hal Berghel, a computer science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Berghel's report defined swatting as:
A malicious act that involves making fraudulent 911 calls to cause emergency response teams, such as law enforcement special weapons and tactics teams, or SWAT teams (thatโs where the gerundโs root comes from), to react forcefully to a nonexistent public threat.
Scott Schubert, of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services, told NBC News that the database will help combat the growing swatting problem by facilitating "information sharing between hundreds of police departments and law enforcement agencies across the country pertaining to swatting incidents."
Last month, a declassified FBI report revealed that the bureau had used Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to conduct multiple unlawful searches of a sitting Congress memberโs personal communications. Wired was the first to report the abuse, but for weeks, no one knew exactly which lawmaker was targeted by the FBI. That changed this week when Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) revealed during an annual House Intelligence Committee hearing on world threats that the FBIโs abuse of 702 was โin factโ aimed at him.
โThis careless abuse by the FBI is unfortunate,โ LaHood said at the hearing, suggesting that the searches of his name not only โdegrades trust in FISAโ but was a โthreat to separation of powersโ in the United States. Calling the FBIโs past abuses of Section 702 โegregious,โ the congressmanโwho is leading the House Intelligence Committee's working group pushing to reauthorize Section 702 amid a steeply divided Congressโsaid that โironically,โ being targeted by the FBI gives him a โunique perspectiveโ on โwhatโs wrong with the FBI.โ
LaHood has said that having his own Fourth Amendment rights violated in ways others consider โfrighteningโ positions him well to oversee the working group charged with implementing bipartisan reforms and safeguards that would prevent any such abuses in the future.
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, argues that the Justice Department has victimized and attempted to silence conservative parents.