This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The inspector general for America's Department of Justice cannot dispute that there could be 10,000 bureaucrats with the ability to spy on Americans.

What IG Michael Horowitz was able to confirm to a congressional hearing was that the FBI has done 3.45 million warrantless "backdoor searches" of Americans' communications, and the "error rate" for those was 30%, meaning there were more than a million erroneous searches.

The comments came before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance concerning "How a Law Designed to Protect Americans Has Been Weaponized Against Them."

Horowitz was being questioned by Rep. Matt Gaetz.

"I want to get into the 3.4 million backdoor searches that the ranking member pointed out in his opening statement. Mr. Inspector General. How should the public think about those?" Gaetz asked.

"Well, I think what we’ve seen in the various public reports, and I’m limited in what I can say about what’s public, which I think is one of the issues, by the way, that’s worth talking about, is transparency here," said Horowitz.

He said, "It’s obviously very concerning that there’s that volume of searches and particularly concerning the error rate that was reported on in the last two years in the public reporting."

When Horowitz was asked how many people have access to FISA to perform “backdoor searches” of Americans’ communications, there appeared no answer.

The Daily Caller News Foundation explained, "FISA Section 702 enables intelligence agencies to carry out targeted surveillance of foreigners outside the U.S., but they have improperly used it on Americans. There were 3.4 million backdoor searches in 2021, according to an Office of the Director of National Intelligence 2022 Transparency report."

Gaetz then said, "If I represent to you that we believe there may be north of 10,000 people in the federal government that can perform those queries, would anyone have a basis to disagree with that assessment?"

"No,” Horowitz said.