FBI Illegally Used Patriot Act, Audit Says

Justice Department Report Claims Bureau Improperly Used Terror Bill To Obtain Private Information

(CBS/AP)  The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

And for three years the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was to blame for not putting more safeguards into place.

"I am to be held accountable," Mueller said. He told reporters he would correct the problems and did not plan to resign.

"The inspector general went and did the audit that I should have put in place many years ago," Mueller said.

The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that FBI agents sometimes demanded personal data on individuals without proper authorization. The 126-page audit also found the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

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Dept. Of Justice Report On FBI Business Records

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The audit blames agent error and shoddy recordkeeping for the bulk of the problems; it did not find any indication of criminal misconduct.

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

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who oversees the FBI, said the problems outlined in the report involved no intentional wrongdoing. In remarks prepared for delivery to privacy officials late Friday, Gonzales said: "In many cases, we're talking about people taking shortcuts, people being sloppy, people not knowing what was required of them; insufficient oversight, quite frankly."

He added, "There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible."

The White House says President Bush still believes the Patriot Act is a "critical and effective tool" in the war on terror despite the report, reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said Mr. Bush "expressed significant concern over the seriousness of the issues" but that the president "was relieved to learn the Inspector General found no instances of intentional misconduct."

At issue are the security letters, a power outlined in the Patriot Act that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The letters, or administrative subpoenas, are used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers — without a judge's approval.

The FBI has sent tens of thousands of such letters, reports CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras.

Librarian George Christian received one. "To receive a request like this — to help spy on someone and then remain silent about it forever — it was chilling," he said.

Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the government, in general, needs to return to information gathering methods used prior to the Patriot Act.

The FBI must "limit these very powerful tools to situations in which the government is actually tracking suspected terrorists or spies," Cohn told CBS News Radio.

[stick130]

I guess we know now what happens when ya give unlimited powers to an Idiot. He attacks the wrong country and thousands of innocent people die. Hopefully our children will be much smarter than we were.

[freespeech3]

Lars008 do you actually have any thoughts of your own or do tou just do savant copying? Personally I am not willing to give up a single one of my freedoms - not one - not ever!

[lars008-2009]

Patrick Henry
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! March 23, 1775

The following text is a fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in August, 1996. The fatwa is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html

Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans
http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

Osama bin Laden's Declaration of War
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_Declaration_of_War

[firststate]

Dickey C and rummy learned through their time with the previous would-be ruler-President, the 1st Trickey Dickey. The Patriot Act is their brainchild along with other traitors. A plan so comprehensive and intrusive was prepared and they were waiting for an excuse for it when 9/11 happened. The Nixonian acolytes were probably writing it during their previous days of shame in the white house. It was their work during the day and nightly wet dream material. It's not a unified executive, it's a dictatorship.

As Anti-American as the Patriot Act was, it wasn't enough to get them off any more. The lust for power by these NeoConSpirators required ever-larger doses to satisfy their need for a power fix. Criminal policies and unconstitutional programs grew from their attempts to slake their hunger for power & control. Information and data became their new weapons to further their treachery. The "Real ID" is to become the infamous papers political police would demand of citizens. They secretly ignored the law and skipped even the cursory rubber stamp review by FIS Courts because instantly was too slow. They decided that "data-mining" was necessary and would provide information about contacts of political "enemies" and might point out terrorists. The illegal & unconstitutional programs and policies revealed by patriots may have slowed their rush to rule.

Trust Us is neo-con for screw you. They want to turn our rights into rewards for fealty. They should be: 1.ashamed, 2.prosecuted.

[starleo146]

Maybe The 6 U.S. Attorneys they fired will give us some dirt and we will have a list if they don't hurt them first.

[hungry1968]

Innocent errors such as these, are a, infringement on my rights as a free American nonetheless. And habitual innocent errors will easily turn into a force of evil-habit for any human being who has the ability to rationalize his or her own less-virtous behavior.
Posted by emtak1 at 11:18 AM : Mar 10, 2007

Innocent Errors?!?! Are you kidding? The Patriot Act was designed to give this administration the power to abuse.
Do you believe that they pulled Valerie Plame's name out of a hat? No - they used, read abused, their powers to read into Joe Wilson's personnel file, to dig up something on him since he wasn't playing along with the team. (Regarding Iraq and WMD's.) The only thing they had was exposing his wife to danger as an undercover agent, so they used that. His personnel records shouldn't be readily available to look at, even for the President or Vice President. They should only look into this PRIVATE information when necessary, such as disipline, etc. - not for ammunition.

[emtak1]

Mueller should be fired, just as the Secretary of the Army and head of Walter Reed Hosiptal was.

Innocent errors such as these, are a, infringement on my rights as a free American nonetheless. And habitual innocent errors will easily turn into a force of evil-habit for any human being who has the ability to rationalize his or her own less-virtous behavior.

Case inpoint: Mueller is not willing to resign, even though he himself admits that he handled a national matter of such grave concern to every American with stellar incompetence.

That is not reasonable, but Mueller has rationalized to himself that it is the right course of action.

[formrusmcsgt]

Surprise!!! Surprise!!!! That someone abused the phony Patriot Act! Anyone with a brain in their head knew it would only take a couple of seconds for someone to start abusing it.
Posted by grumpas at 09:26 AM : Mar 10, 2007

Yeah...go figure, eh? You give the government police state powers and they start acting like a police state. Who could have guessed?

[grumpas]

Surprise!!! Surprise!!!! That someone abused the phony Patriot Act! Anyone with a brain in their head knew it would only take a couple of seconds for someone to start abusing it.

[starleo146]

The day I believe that the F.B.I. did not know they made a mistake is when the world will be at total peace. Alberto Gonzales Knew and at the hearings the questions were getting close to congress finding out I think, and this is to cover the justice systems behind. another fall guy to protect guess who. I am probably all wrong but this adm. has my mind going in a very untrustworthy way i'm sorry to say after this adm. will I ever trust the office of the Pres. again? I pray our country will become America once again we have a lot of surgery to perform though.

[scottyusa]

I cannot wait to see the list of FBI agents arrested for breaking the law

[skyk-2009]

Our last 6 yrs show 1 party control of both houses of congress and the oval office at its worst. Senate rules (cloture) should be codified, to remove the nuclear option & guarantee a degree of bipartisanship that would have shed some light in the dark corners where our liberties were looted.
Posted by firststate at 01:11 AM : Mar 10, 2007

I don't think that's completely accurate. You MUST have a FASCIST executive branch and a Do Nothing Congress that's more interested in promoting the Religious Reich than they are with oversight. That by the way is THEIR job as defined by the Constitution.

[l8c6]

Are we experiencing a hostile takeover?

[johnshaft4]

They should be called KGB instead of FBI.

[firststate]

Conservatives need to take the long view in the '08 elections. Another Republican administration won't get rid of all the domestic snooping. Too many bottom level appointees would remain and they'd tend to want to maintain the mechanisms for use later. We'll need an entire new group of appointees working with career people to even find all the pieces. Some Rep. appointees (soc. & neo cons) have agendas different from the party and value individual liberties less than acceptable behavior. If the lowest level appointees aren't changed some will stop using without dismantling some of the snooping tendrils. The domestic snooping programs will tend to evolve into a bureaucracy within the bureaucracy, to watch people for "anti-gov. speech or acts", along the lines of a political police. A Dem. admin. at its tax & spend worst, would be better than another borrow and spend Rep. admin. Some of their programs serve interests of social cons. and Nixonian dirty tricks more that threat monitoring. Bush-Cheney limited gov. in boardrooms and put it in rooms in people's homes. Even if an admin. can resist the temptation the snooping offers, it's dangerous to set this kind of precedent.

Our last 6 yrs show 1 party control of both houses of congress and the oval office at its worst. Senate rules (cloture) should be codified, to remove the nuclear option & guarantee a degree of bipartisanship that would have shed some light in the dark corners where our liberties were looted.

[j-whitman]

So, just another itty bitty mistake.. What's the fuss ?? You'd think this job was as important as working at Dairy Queen or something.

[macusweil]

If ya want an omelet ya gotta break a few eggs. If you want a fascist / autocratic state you got to break a few laws, take away freedoms, suspend habeas corpus and authorize the use of torture. Thanks George!!

At first it looked like the cold war was one on the side of democracy and freedom, but now we see in both Russia and the US a stark decline in the basic human liberties.

[stevex47]

Isn't it wierd to think how close we are to a dictatorship? I guess it show's how a country's politics can swing wildly in different directions.

Has there ever been a "good" dictator? Really,

[l8c6]

the whole flip flob thing at the RNC was rather moronic indeed.

[stevex47]

If illegal wiretaps and other crimes happened during the Clinton administration, do you think conservatives would have had a problem with them then?

Flip-flop, ha.