Justice Dept. Confirms FBI Privacy Abuses

Inspector General Notes Misuse Of Personal Information; Ponders Corrective Action

(AP)  The Justice Department's inspector general reported Thursday that FBI abuses in obtaining personal information about Americans during terrorism investigations continued to rise in 2006. He reserved judgment on whether corrective actions under way will work.

"It is too early to tell whether these measures will eliminate fully the problems," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in his second report in two years on the use of national security letters to obtain personal information. Fine said the FBI and Justice Department had made significant progress in implementing revised procedures since last year but some measures still are not fully in use or tested.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers acknowledged that "the FBI has taken important steps to repair" the problems but said, "I remain disappointed."

Conyers, D-Mich., said his committee would question FBI Director Robert Mueller about the inspector general's report at a hearing next month.

The new procedures govern how FBI agents use national security letters, which allow them to obtain telephone, bank, Internet and credit records without first getting a warrant from a judge. These revised procedures were announced after Fine's report last year found 48 violations of law or rules in the bureau's use of national security letters from 2003 to 2005.

Fine said that the number of abuses found and reported by the FBI itself in 2006 "was significantly higher than the number of reported violations in prior years." He said the improved self-policing "may be explained in large part" by attention focused on these issues by his earlier audit, which was being conducted during 2006.

In written statements, both the FBI and the Justice Department noted that the 2006 abuses occurred before Fine's first report brought problems to light last year.

In 2006, FBI personnel self-reported 84 possible violations to headquarters. Of these, the FBI concluded that 34 needed be reported to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, which polices intelligence-gathering abuses, Fine said.

The errors included issuing national security letters without proper authorization, improper requests and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records.

Fine determined that 20 of these violations resulted from mistakes by the FBI and 14 resulted initially from errors by the companies that received the letters. But Fine added that "the FBI may have compounded these errors" by recipients because agents did not recognize that the companies turned over too much information and went ahead and used or loaded into bureau computers the inappropriately obtained information.

The FBI's use of national security letters rose by 4.7 percent in 2006, to 49,425 letters from 47,221 letters in 2005, Fine said. Since 2003, U.S. citizens and foreigners legally in this country have increasingly been the targets of the letters, rising from 39 percent of requests in 2003 to 60 percent in 2006, Fine reported.

Fine issued 17 new recommendations to help improve the FBI's use and policing of the letters, including additional guidance and training for agents and regular monitoring of the handling of the letters. He said the FBI agreed to all of them.

Fine commended the FBI for devoting "significant time, energy and resources to ensuring that its employees understand the seriousness of the FBI's shortcomings." He emphasized that "continual attention, vigilance and reinforcement by the FBI and the department" will be required.

Fine criticized one of the Justice Department's reform efforts. He said an August 2007 proposal by a working group under Justice's chief privacy officer "did not adequately address measures to label or tag NSL-derived information or to minimize the retention and dissemination of such information."

The FBI and Justice Department said they were pleased that Fine reported significant progress and commitment on their part to resolving the problem and that they had gone beyond his initial recommendations.

Assistant FBI Director John Miller said new rules require that an attorney review the letters before they are sent, a new automated system was put in place to reduce errors and improve the accuracy of reports to Congress, and agents are getting more training about national security letters.

"We are committed to using them in ways that maximize their national security value while providing the highest level of privacy and protection of the civil liberties of those we are sworn to protect," Miller said.

[missingamerica]

Aaahhhhh....now I know why Bush signed that Executive Order on the 29th of February; the knowledge that the information in this article was going to be made public must have made its way upstairs beforehand...

[gunownerdan]

"Unless the people retain sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1812

[alphaa10-2009]

CBS reports, "Since 2003, U.S. citizens and foreigners legally in this country have increasingly been the targets of the letters, rising from 39 percent of requests in 2003 to 60 percent in 2006, Fine reported."

Surprised? The Patriot Act was supposed to focus on penetration by terrorist groups, presumably foreigners. Instead, domestic surveillance of US citizens increased by more than 50 percent.

This is the most ominous aspect of all to the reign of error under Bush and Gonzales. The so-called Patriot Act unpatriotically began a Big Brother-style wholesale surveillance of citizens and legal non-citizens-- this despite protests of innocence from Gonzales and Bush.

Put another way, implementation of the Patriot Act began the very subversion it claimed to prevent.

[alphaa10-2009]

Gonzales on April 27, 2005, insisted to congress there had %u201Cnot been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."

Just six days earlier, Gonzales had been handed an FBI report which said the exact opposite.

That Gonzales performance became a significant milestone in his decline and fall, marking the day when catching Gonzales in a fat, oily, foul-smelling prevarication became progressively easier.

Gonzales became so widely known for his weasel words and slippery fabrications before congress, he disgusted members of his own party, who publicly condemned his testimony.

As it turned out, this travesty of truthful testimony from the nation''s top law enforcer closely matched the end game closing in on Bush and Cheney, as their own 935+ lies about Iraq became painfully apparent.

[cnjcc]

Bush has threatened to veto the House version of a pending bill because it would not provide retroactive immunity to the telecoms for violating the wiretap laws. He says that''s needed to "protect our children".

Who is going to protect me from my own government?

[inventagod]

Bu$hCo Pigs.

We tried to warn you, we really did...

[scottyusa]

"We are committed to using them in ways that maximize their national security value while providing the highest level of privacy and protection of the civil liberties of those we are sworn to protect," Miller said.

Just when did that start? Yesterday? There should be agents in jail for these violations of people''s rights? What a dumb thing to say considering the subject. How much do you think this idiot makes in a year?

[cfin5]

"The dignity of man is not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened, bent, and eventually neutered. Men are seldom forced to act, but are constantly restrained from acting. Such power does not destroy outright, but prevents genuine existence. It does not tyrannize immediately, but it dampens, weakens, and ultimately suffocates, until the entire population is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid, uninspired animals, of which the government is shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville...........Yeah, boil those frogs real slow so they don''t jump out of the pot till they''re dead.

[wdrussell1]

Way to go CBS. I had this in my blog a week ago.

Thursday, March 06, 2008
Who are they really after?

The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans'' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.

Get serious here folks. Any evil-doer in the world already knows that their telephone, e-mail, and ever regular mail communications are being monitored, and they act accordingly.
The only people the FBI(DHS) are going after are ordinary Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/senate_fbi

[briannorwood]

Yeah. And The Chimp is in a tissy fit because congress will not give the telecoms blanket immunity.

If they weren''t in legal jeopardy, they would not NEED immunity!