House speaker says plot was foiled by communications intercepted under Fisa surveillance – but FBI criminal complaint says secret informant was responsible

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The speaker of the House has offered an explanation for the apprehension of a suspect in a planned Capitol shooting at odds with the FBI’s description of the case.

John Boehner said on Thursday that Christopher Cornell, the 20-year old Ohio man arrested for allegedly planning a Capitol Hill shooting spree, had his plot foiled thanks to communications intercepted by US authorities.

“The first thing that strikes me is that we would have never known about this had it not been for the Fisa program and our ability to collect information on people who pose an imminent threat,” Boehner said at a press conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Fisa is an acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a foundational 1978 law governing the interception within the United States of communications related to foreign espionage and now terrorism.

A critical provision that updated Fisa post-9/11, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, has been used in secret by the National Security Agency to justify the bulk collection of all US phone records. It is set to expire on 1 June, and many civil libertarians question whether support for its reauthorization of mass domestic surveillance exists in the new Congress.

Yet according to the criminal complaint against Cornell, a secret government informant, not the communications interception covered by Fisa, was the key to the case.

The complaint, released on Wednesday, said the “confidential human source” who sought leniency for unrelated criminal offenses “supplied information to the FBI about a person using the alias of Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah (defendant Christopher Cornell) who posted comments and information supportive of [the Islamic State] through social media accounts”.

Cornell’s Twitter account, identified as the now-deleted @ISBlackFlags, was public, and would not have required a warrant under Fisa for law enforcement to view it.

Nor did Cornell possess ties of any substance to the Islamic State that would have prompted Fisa-authorized surveillance, the complaint indicated.

While Cornell boasted to the informant of contact with unspecified “persons overseas”, the complaint said he doubted the group would authorize him to launch an attack.

“I believe we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything,” the complaint quotes Cornell as saying.

The complaint cites Cornell discussing ideas for the attack with the informant on an instant-messaging platform, the only indication the complaint provides of an interceptable electronic record of Cornell’s plans aside from social media. But since Cornell’s interlocutor was the government informant, the informant may have simply provided the conversation to the FBI.

Cornell was arrested on Wednesday in Ohio after purchasing two M-15 rifles and approximately 600 rounds of ammunition.

The FBI referred any inquiries in the Cornell case to the criminal complaint.

Boehner did not explain how Fisa was relevant to the investigation, suggesting instead that additional information would substantiate his assertion in the coming days. But the top Republican in Congress explicitly tied Cornell to the upcoming political battle over the expiring Patriot Act surveillance authorities.

“I’m going to say this one more time because you’re going to hear about it for months and months to come as we attempt to reauthorize the Fisa program,” Boehner said.

“Our government does not spy on Americans unless there are Americans who are doing things that frankly tip off law-enforcement officials to an imminent threat.”