Day: October 9, 2025

“Unleashed and Unaccountable”: In September 2013, the  #ACLU published the report, ” #UnleashedandUnaccountable: The  #FBI‘s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” documenting the agency’s expanded powers since 2001.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has issued reports and analyses on the FBI for decades, consistently scrutinizing the expansion of its powers and potential abuses of authority. The specific focus and scale of the ACLU’s reports often reflect the current political climate and national security concerns of the era
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Pre- and Post-9/11 reports • Before 9/11 (through 2001): The ACLU had a long history of monitoring the FBI’s activities. For example, by 1949, it expressed concerns about the “creation of a secret political police system” due to the expansion of FBI functions. In the 2000s, the ACLU was involved in campaigns that revealed the FBI’s misuse of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to spy on political advocacy organizations.
• After 9/11 (2001-2013): Following the expansion of FBI powers under the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU documented numerous abuses, including:

• Domestic spying: The ACLU highlighted how the FBI had become a domestic intelligence agency with unprecedented power to collect data on ordinary Americans who were not suspected of wrongdoing. In 2013, the ACLU detailed how the FBI used the Patriot Act to track all U.S. telephone calls.
• National Security Letters (NSLs): An ACLU report from 2013 noted that between 2003 and 2006, the FBI issued nearly 200,000 NSLs to obtain personal information without judicial approval. These were rarely tied to terrorism convictions but were often used to collect data on innocent people.
• Profiling and politically motivated investigations: The organization documented racial and religious profiling, biased training materials, and the use of the No-Fly List to pressure individuals into becoming informants.
• “Unleashed and Unaccountable”: In September 2013, the ACLU published the report, “Unleashed and Unaccountable: The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” documenting the agency’s expanded powers since 2001. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] 

Recent reports and actions • 2011-2013: Monitoring misconduct: In 2011 and 2012, the ACLU used Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to expose FBI misconduct. Documents showed that the FBI used “community outreach” programs to illegally collect intelligence on American Muslims’ religious and political beliefs.
• 2013: Documents on surveillance: Through litigation, the ACLU obtained over 1,900 pages of FBI, DOJ, and NSA documents revealing a lack of privacy safeguards in the government’s surveillance programs.
• 2023: Lawsuit and record releases: As part of a FOIA lawsuit (ACLU v. FBI), the ACLU received and released several batches of FBI records related to the use of cell-site simulators and nondisclosure agreements. [8, 9, 10, 11] 

For more details and access to specific reports and documents, you can visit the ACLU’s dedicated “Eye on the FBI” or “Mapping the FBI” sections on its website. [2, 10, 12] 

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1]  aclu.org/news/civil-libertie…
[2]  aclu.org/mapping-the-fbi
[3]  aclu.org/news/national-secur…
[4]  aclu.org/news/national-secur…
[5]  aclu.org/privacy-and-surveil…
[6]  aclu.org/surveillance-under-…
[7]  aclu.org/documents/unleashed…
[8]  aclu.org/cases/aclu-v-fbi-fo…
[9]  aclu.org/documents/aclu-eye-…
[10]  aclu.org/documents/eye-fbi-e…
[11]  aclunc.org/our-work/legal-do…
[12]  aclu.org/documents/eye-fbi-e…

Aclu reports on FBI by years – Google Search  google.com/search?q=Aclu+rep…

— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Oct 9, 2025