Facebook has been spying on the private messages and data of American users andย reporting them to the FBIย if they express anti-government or anti-authority sentiments โ or questionย the 2020 electionย โ according to sources within the Department of Justice.
Under the FBI collaboration operation, somebody at Facebook red-flagged these supposedly subversive private messages over the past 19 months and transmitted them in redacted form to the domestic terrorism operational unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, without a subpoena.
โIt was done outside the legal process and without probable cause,โ alleged one of the sources, who spoke on condition of ยญanonymity.
โFacebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena.โ
These private messages then have been farmed out as โleadsโ to FBI field offices around the country, which subsequently requested subpoenas from the partner US Attorneyโs Office in their district to officially obtain the private conversations that Facebook already had shown them.
But when the targeted Facebook users were investigated by agents in a local FBI field office, sometimes using covert surveillance techniques, nothing criminal or violent turned up.
โIt was a waste of our time,โ said one source familiar with subpoena requests lodged during a 19-month frenzy by FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, to produce the caseload to match the Biden administrationโs rhetoric on domestic terrorism after the Jan.โ6, 2021, Capitol riot.
โRed-blooded Americansโ
The Facebook users whose private communications Facebook had red-flagged as domestic terrorism for the FBI were all โconservative right-wing individuals.โ
โThey were gun-toting, red-blooded Americans [who were] angry after the election and shooting off their mouths and talking about staging protests. There was nothing criminal, nothing about violence or massacring or assassinating anyone.
โAs soon as a subpoena was requested, within an hour, Facebook sent back gigabytes of data and photos. It was ready to go. They were just waiting for that legal process so they could send it.โ
Facebook denied the allegations yesterday.