According to the ruling, tens of thousands of searches the FBI made of raw intelligence databases from 2017 to 2018 were illegal, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The searches involved personal data including emails and telephone numbers of private citizens.
"The court...finds that the FBI’s querying procedures and minimization procedures are not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment," wrote U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in the ruling, which was released Tuesday in partially redacted form.
Boasberg said the Trump administration failed to persuade the court that adjusting the program to more efficiently protect American citizens’ privacy would impede the FBI’s ability to counter threats.