FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday where he was grilled by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul over the agency’s alleged collusion with Facebook.
“You may think it’s just jolly well to get all this stuff without a warrant that people volunteer to you, but many of us are alarmed that you’re getting this information that are private communications between people, because it is against the law,” Paul told Wray during the Thursday hearing. “It’s against the law for Facebook, or social media companies to give it to you. But it’s also against the law for you to receive it.”
Republicans from the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee released a report earlier this month alleging that Facebook shared private communications of its users who questioned the results of the 2020 presidential elections, and shared their details with the FBI.
The agency and the Department of Justice also face criticism for pushing Facebook and other social media platforms to suppress The New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, calling it a part of “Russian disinformation.”
Mark Zuckerberg says that FB censored the Hunter Biden laptop story after the FBI came to them and warned about Russian propaganda. pic.twitter.com/FHPNcAYMI9
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 25, 2022
“Are you taking information that you’re getting not through the warrant process, and then going around and coming back and using that as a predicate for getting a warrant to actually get the information you’ve already been given?” Paul asked Wray.
Wray later admitted that the FBI had received “tips” from social media companies and used them to eventually start “lawful processes.”
According to Wray, the FBI got tipped about alleged foreign accounts, linked with Russian intelligence agencies, as an example, and other alleged threats of violence.
“The question is — is when we start to talk about political speech,” Senator Paul asked.
“What ‘The New York Post’ article said is, yes, you’re getting this,” Paul continued. “And then when they’re finally read in context — and this is from a whistleblower, which makes us suspect you’re not being forthcoming or honest with us — is that whistleblowers are saying you are receiving this information from Facebook and others, and that you are going around the Constitution then come back and try to get warrants for it. But then once you read it, there’s been no actionable intelligence on this. But this is an active program that you’ve got. You work for the government, you should admit to us whether or not you have a program going after our speech.”
Sen. @RandPaul tears into FBI Director Chris Wray over whistleblower claims that the feds are monitoring Americans' speech by working with big tech companies:
"It is against the law!" pic.twitter.com/ClqPE3awSo
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) November 17, 2022
To which, Wray responded, “We investigate violence, not speech.”
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