Steep drop in national security surveillance during pandemic

WASHINGTON — The number of targets of secretive surveillance in national security investigations fell sharply last year in large part because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a government report released Friday. U.S. officials say the statistics are known to fluctuate from year to year because of various factors, but that in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic “likely influenced target behavior, which in turn may have impacted some of the numbers reported for that year.” “The pandemic was the single event with the biggest impact to human behavior worldwide since the Second World War,” said Ben Huebner, the civil liberties chief at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s spy agencies. But targets under a National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program that enables intelligence collection on non-Americans abroad fell slightly last year. Judge James Boasberg scolded the FBI for what the agency described as errors but said its practice of querying NSA data could continue with “ongoing monitoring and auditing.” The FBI’s use of its authority to eavesdrop on subjects in terrorism and espionage investigations came under intense scrutiny in late 2019 after the Justice Department inspector general revealed significant errors and omissions in a series of applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during the investigation into Russian election interference.