Court-Appointed Expert Finds FBI’s Proposed Surveillance Reforms Insufficient

Assistant Attorney General David Kris (L) of the Justice Department's National Security Division testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on July 7, 2009. Win McNamee/Getty Images

The changes proposed by the FBI to address the profound failures in its secret surveillance applications are insufficient, according to the court-appointed expert overseeing the bureau’s reforms.

David Kris, the expert appointed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), made the conclusion in a filing (pdf) with the court on Jan. 15. In addition to recommending measures in areas the FBI already explored, he proposed a set of broader changes necessary to restore the bureau’s “organizational culture of individual responsibility for rigorous accuracy” with the FISC, he said.