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 changes, detailed in a 30-page filing with the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, are meant to ensure that wiretap applications are more closely scrutinized before being submitted for a judge's approval and that they contain accurate information about the reliability and potential bias of sources whom agents rely on.
The FBI also said additional training would be implemented.
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. It also alleged that an FBI lawyer doctored an email used in connection with one of the applications.
In response, the FBI said Friday that it was developing a checklist to be completed during the application process to ensure that all information about a source's reliability and possible bias or motivation is disclosed to the court. The FBI is also revising a form used to request and renew surveillance so as to “elicit information that may undermine probable cause."
The report, which also concluded that the FBI investigation was opened for a legitimate purpose, produced bipartisan calls for change. Some Democrats who had already been skeptical of the FBI's expansive surveillance authorities raised fresh concerns, while Republican allies ..
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