WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- According to an ATF document leaked to AmmoLand News, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) can legally obtain information from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for civil or criminal enforcement.
The monitoring of NICS isn’t for prohibited people. It is for monitoring people that are not prohibited from buying a firearm, but the ATF suspects MIGHT be committing a crime in the future. Someone buying too many guns in the ATF’s or FBI’s eyes could be placed on the list. The person being monitored will NOT be notified of the surveillance. The object of the monitoring is to “catch people who are committing straw purchases or similar crimes.”
According to 28CFR 25.9, NICS keeps some records from a transaction for ten years. This information includes the date/time of the sale and the FFL information. The FBI destroys personal information from those still open requests (no denied/approved) within 90 days. Our sources inside the FBI report the data is deleted on day 88. If the sale is approved, the information will be destroyed within 24 hours of the NICS request being returned. The FBI will keep the records of a denied sale forever. The ATF is notified of every denied sale, and those records are kept in the ATF NICS Referral (ANR) database for the ATF to follow up.
The ATF employee that initiates a NICS Audit Log Request must list all legal violations they suspect the target is committing. They also must provide “detailed information about why” the suspect is under investigation. Even though the form is not an affidavit, the ATF employee must write it like they are writing an affidavit. The requestor must email the form to the ATF NICS Representative.
The ATF NICS Representative will review the request and decide to approve or deny the monitoring of NICS information on the target. They will then forward the information to the NICS Section Liaison Specialist, whose only job is to forward the request to the NICS Legal Analysis Team (LAT) for review.
The LAT will approve the request and set up the monitoring/surveillance on the citizen.
The document says the requestor can be a “Special Agent, Industry Operations Investigator (IOI), Intelligence Research Specialist, Intelligence Analyst, etc.” The NICS monitoring is only supposed to be used for civil or criminal enforcement. IOIs are strictly prohibited from doing either enforcement activity. They are not on the law enforcement side of the ATF. They are on the industry side of the agency. If an IOI suspects a criminal or civil violation, the investigator is supposed to fill out a “Suspicious Activities Report.”
The IOI will then notify the ATF’s Gun Crime Intelligence Center or state or local law enforcement. The IOI does not investigate crimes. It is unclear why they would need NICS monitoring capabilities as that falls outside anything that they would need to complete their job. The ATF is strictly prohibited from using the annual inspection as a cover for a criminal or civil investigation.
The job of the IOIs is to make sure all the FFL’s paperwork is in order and to answer any questions they may have for the ATF. The IOIs being listed as an authorized requestor group could signify that some in the ATF do not realize that the ATF is made up of a regulatory side and a law enforcement division. It also could be an oversight of the person writing the document.
Gun Owners of America has been given the document and is filing a freedom of information act (FOIA) to get more information about those being monitored by the ATF through NICS.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
You know what I read in all of this? Bureaucracy. And a big one at that. There are checker’s for the checker’s and every entity has it’s own fiefdom, budget and desire to grow bigger with more and more power. SMH. How do we stop this train wreck from happening when every part of it is in motion towards the wreck? Not one word in the Constitution says we should have an ATF to harass gun owners and dealers. Then you look at this small fuster cluck of bosses and minions and I have to wonder, How did such a… Read more »
I wonder who has the authority to decide that someone is buying too many firearms and how many is too many? Do they have a crystal ball that shows them someone will commit a crime in the future because they bought too many guns? What if I came into a pile of money winning a lottery and went and bought every gun I had on my wish list, do I become a future criminal because I used my second amendment right. Big brother has gotten out of hand with their operations and departments, the government needs to be cut back… Read more »
What a wonderful job to have! First requirement is that you have to be a psychopathic control freak willing to cage or murder people for really bad acts! Like cutting off a shotgun barrel, or having a rifle with a barrel length shorter then some psychopathic control freak polytickshun elite said you can have, or for having a weapon that fires more then one round with the pull of a trigger, or putting a vertical grip on a handgun, or or or or…gee, and where does SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED come in? Or where is the VICTIM in ANY of… Read more »
ATFE
“Alcohol” is legal.
“Tobacco” is legal.
“Firearms” are legal.
Crimes involving “Explosives” can more than adequately be investigated by the FBI.
Defund and dissolve this behemoth of a taxpayer burden.
One must remember that the “atf/batf/eatfb” was formed ILLEGALLY by a director in the “irs”. CONGRESS did NOT form the ATF!!!
This alone makes EVERYTHING the “atf” does ILLEGAL and ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL!!!!!!! The ATF MUST BE dismantled!!!
one more case of atf violating the law