Audit: FBI snooping did not follow rules

EJJR

New member
The FBI is guilty of "serious misuse" of the power to secretly obtain private information under the Patriot Act, a government audit said Friday.

The Justice Department's inspector general looked at the FBI's use of national security letters (NSLs), in which agents demand personal and business information about individuals -- such as financial, phone, and Internet records -- without court orders.

The audit found the letters were issued without proper authority, cited incorrect statutes or obtained information they weren't supposed to.

As many as 22 percent of national security letters were not recorded, the audit said.

"We concluded that many of the problems we identified constituted serious misuse of the FBI's national security letter authorities," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in the report.

The audit said there were no indications that the FBI's use of the letters "constituted criminal misconduct."

The FBI has made as many as 56,000 requests a year for information using the letters since the Patriot Act was passed in October, 2001, the audit found.

A single letter can contain multiple information requests, and multiple letters may target one individual.

The audit found that in 2004 and 2005, more than half of the targets of the national security letters were U.S. citizens.
Letter used to track phone calls, FBI says

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday that 90 percent of the letters are used to access phone records in helping to track U.S. contacts with suspected terrorists overseas.

Mueller took responsibility for the FBI's problems and said steps had been taken to eliminate them.

"I am to be held accountable," he said, for failing to provide the proper guidelines, training and tools for agents working with the national security letters.

The inspector general's review identified "26 possible intelligence violations" between 2003 and 2005, 19 of which the FBI reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, the audit said.

Of the 26, "22 were the result of FBI errors, while four were caused by mistakes made by recipients of the NSLs," it said.

The audit also found problems with "exigent letters," which are supposed to be used only in emergencies when time may not permit the NSL procedure to be followed.

The audit found exigent letters were not used in emergencies and gave the agency access to telephone records it should not have had.

Mueller said Friday the FBI stopped using exigent letters in May 2006 after the practice was revealed. He said they were used to obtain information the FBI was entitled to but should have gained in other ways.
Use of letters grew after 9/11 attacks

Most of the 200-page report focuses on the national security letters, the use of which it says has undergone a "dramatic increase" since the Patriot Act was put into law after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The letters existed before the attacks, but the Patriot Act allowed them to be used on a broader scale to seek more information.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on Congress to "act immediately to repeal these dangerous Patriot Act provisions."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote Fine, praising the report and saying he has asked the Justice Department's National Security Division and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Office to work with the FBI in making changes.

"They will report to me regularly on their progress," Gonzales said. "In addition, I ask that you report to me in four months on the implementation of your recommendations."

Mueller said the national security letters are indispensable in the the war on terror, saying that the recent arrest on espionage charges of a former U.S. Navy sailor in Arizona as one instance where they were needed.

The FBI director said no one has suffered harm from the errors made in use of the letters.

On Capitol Hill, the audit brought calls for better oversight and possibly changes in the law.

"There will be oversight hearings," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. He said the Patriot Act may have to be changed and power given the FBI curtailed because "they appear not to be able to know how to use it."

"You cannot have people act as free agents on something where they are going to be delving into your privacy," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said. "We all want to stop terrorists. We all want to stop criminals. But the FBI work for us, the American people, not the other way around."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Is this just fluffed propoganda?

Simply a case of sloppy bookeeping and agent error, as the FBI contends?

Or, does it highlight a growing trend in our Govt to act in a subversive manner against its own citizens?

IF it is a case of sloppy bookeeping, doesnt that fact alone give pause for great concern?
 
Last edited:
Woa, you mean that if police/government gets more power, they might abuse it?:rolleyes:

Needs to be serious oversight on this stuff. Thanks for the read.
 
The old "we're just incompetent, we're not trying to screw you" excuse again. People are slow, but they are waking up to this.

The Waco "this is not an assault", as they're tearing down walls with tanks, is getting more than a little old.

badbob
 
Gonzales, Mueller admit FBI broke law

Associated Press 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the
FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.
ADVERTISEMENT

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left open the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against FBI agents or lawyers who improperly used the USA Patriot Act in pursuit of suspected terrorists and spies.

The FBI's transgressions were spelled out in a damning 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. He found that agents sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit also concluded that the FBI for three years underreported to Congress how often it used national security letters to ask businesses to turn over customer data. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval.

"People have to believe in what we say," Gonzales said. "And so I think this was very upsetting to me. And it's frustrating."

"We have some work to do to reassure members of Congress and the American people that we are serious about being responsible in the exercise of these authorities," he said.

Under the Patriot Act, the national security letters give the FBI authority to demand that telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses produce personal records about their customers or subscribers. About three-fourths of the letters issued between 2003 and 2005 involved counterterror cases, with the rest for espionage investigations, the audit reported.

Shoddy record-keeping and human error were to blame for the bulk of the problems, said Justice auditors, who were careful to note they found no indication of criminal misconduct.

Still, "we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities," the audit concluded.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said many of the problems were being fixed, including by building a better internal data collection system and training employees on the limits of their authority. The FBI has also scrapped the use of "exigent letters," which were used to gather information without the signed permission of an authorized official.

"But the question should and must be asked: How could this happen? Who is accountable?" Mueller said. "And the answer to that is, I am to be held accountable."

Mueller said he had not been asked to resign, nor had he discussed doing so with other officials. He said employees would probably face disciplinary actions, not criminal charges, following an internal investigation of how the violations occurred.

The audit incensed lawmakers in Congress already seething over the recent dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. Democrats who lead House and Senate judiciary and intelligence oversight panels promised hearings on the findings. Several lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — raised the possibility of scaling back the FBI's authority.

"It's up to Congress to end these abuses as soon as possible," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Patriot Act was never intended to allow the Bush administration to violate fundamental constitutional rights."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the audit shows "a major failure by Justice to uphold the law."

"If the Justice Department is going to enforce the law, it must follow it as well," said Hoekstra, of Michigan.

The
American Civil Liberties Union said the audit proves Congress must amend the Patriot Act to require judicial approval anytime the FBI wants access to sensitive personal information.

"The attorney general and the FBI are part of the problem, and they cannot be trusted to be part of the solution," said ACLU's executive director, Anthony D. Romero.

Both Gonzales and Mueller called the national security letters vital tools in pursuing terrorists and spies in the United States. "They are the bread and butter of our investigations," Mueller said.

Gonzales asked the inspector general to issue a follow-up audit in July on whether the FBI had followed recommendations to fix the problems.

Fine's annual review is required by Congress, over the objections of the Bush administration. It concluded that the number of national security letters requested by the FBI skyrocketed in the years after the Patriot Act became law. Each letter issued may contain several requests.

In 2000, for example, the FBI issued an estimated 8,500 requests. That number peaked in 2004 with 56,000. Overall, the FBI reported issuing 143,074 requests in national security letters between 2003 and 2005.

But that did not include an additional 8,850 requests that were never recorded in the FBI's database, the audit found. A sample review of 77 case files at four FBI field offices showed that agents had underreported the number of national security letter requests by about 22 percent.

Additionally, the audit found, the FBI identified 26 possible violations in its use of the letters, including failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records.

The FBI also used exigent letters to quickly get information — sometimes in non-emergency situations — without going through proper channels. In at least 700 cases, these letters were sent to three telephone companies to get billing records and subscriber information, the audit found.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Since this posting the DOJ has removed the report from its website; go figure...
 
Whats the ol saying?You can fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time.lol.
 
show me a LEO agency that don't abuse their power in one way or another, then tell me what comic book you're reading. they are hired to catch you breaking a law then screw you over and no other reason.
 
The problem isn't that the FBI abused the authority, but that they were given the authority in the first place. Here's what I want to know: Where are all the apologists who were spewing "if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about"?
 
[sacasm] We need the PATRIOT act to catch terrorist and to listen in on their phone calls. They'll kill us if we don't It'll never be used against citizens....yaddah yaddah yaddah[/sarcasm]:barf:


TOLD YA SO!:mad:
 
Wasn't this the kinda behaver that got the FBI in hot water and led to the passage of restrictive surveillance laws in the 70's pushed by Sen. Frank Church?

We need to protect ourselves now more than ever which makes it very hard to know just exactly where to draw the line.

I was very against what the FBI was doing back then, but it is a new world with real terrorist threats so I doubt I would restrict too much especially the so called profiling.
 
Its some peoples nature to abuse rules and interpret them as they see fit.This is why we have a constitution and checks and balances to insure it doesnt happen.The patriot act(s) side step the whole process leaving it open to interpretation.It might be a good tool in fighting terrorism but its also an ugly one that is used to snoop on everyone else and can be used for political gain as well to get all the dirty laundry out.


Just like all the other feel good measures(RICO)that are abused and used for "other" things besides their original intent.Give them the power to wield it and they will abuse it.
 
We need to protect ourselves now more than ever which makes it very hard to know just exactly where to draw the line.

I was very against what the FBI was doing back then, but it is a new world with real terrorist threats so I doubt I would restrict too much especially the so called profiling.

If you instill fear in people, you can control them. Some folks aren't buying the "terrorists will get us, you must give up all your rights" crap. Some wonder who the "real terrorists" are.

badbob
 
…voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country."
-- Herman Goering

This says it all!
 
Back
Top