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(AP) |
Audit Slams FBI Use
Of Patriot Act
Justice Department
Report Accuses FBI
Of Dramatically
Underreporting Use
CBS NEWS (AP) from
the Web, March 9, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The FBI
improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly
obtain personal information about people in the United States, underreporting
for three years how often it forced businesses to turn over customer data, a
Justice Department audit concluded Friday.
FBI agents sometimes demanded the data without proper authorization, according
to a 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.
At other times, the audit found, the FBI improperly obtained telephone records
in non-emergency circumstances.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine's report says that number was
underreported by 20 percent, according to the officials.
Fine conducted the audit as required by Congress and over the objections of the
Bush administration.
The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the
problems and 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.
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.
One government official familiar with the report said shoddy bookkeeping and
records management led to the problems. The FBI agents appeared to be
overwhelmed by the volume of demands for information over a two-year period, the
official said.
"They lost track," said the official who like others interviewed late Thursday
spoke on condition of anonymity because the report was not being released until
Friday.
"While we’ve already taken some steps to address these shortcomings, I am
ordering additional corrective measures to be taken immediately,” FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller said in a press release Friday.
The FBI in 2005 reported to Congress that its agents had delivered a total of
9,254 national security letters seeking e-mail, telephone or financial
information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents over the previous two
years.
The Justice Department, already facing congressional criticism over its firing
of eight U.S. attorneys, began notifying lawmakers of the audit's damning
contents late Thursday. FBI spokesmen declined to comment on the findings.
Tasia Scolinos, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said Gonzales told
Mueller "these past mistakes will not be tolerated, and has ordered the FBI and
the Department to restore accountability and to put in place safeguards to
ensure greater oversight and controls over the use of national security
letters."
Sen. Charles Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees
the FBI, called the reported findings "a profoundly disturbing breach of public
trust."
"Somebody has a lot of explaining to do," said Schumer, D-N.Y.
Fine's audit also says the FBI failed to send follow-up subpoenas to
telecommunications companies that were told to expect them, the officials said.
Those cases involved so-called exigent letters to alert the companies that
subpoenas would be issued shortly to gather more information, the officials
said. But in many examples, the subpoenas were never sent, the officials
said.
The FBI has since caught up with those omissions, either with national security
letters or subpoenas, one official said.
Cindy Cohn, the 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.
National security letters have been the subject of legal battles in two federal
courts because recipients were barred from telling anyone about them.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Bush administration over what the
ACLU described as the security letter's gag on free speech.
A federal appeals judge in New York warned in May that government's ability to
force companies to turn over information about its customers and keep quiet
about it was probably unconstitutional.
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