Quote:
WASHINGTON (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.
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.
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: "There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible."
Quote:
In 2000, for example, the FBI issued an estimated 8,500 letters. By however, that number jumped to 39,000. It rose again the next year, to about 56,000 letters in 2004, and dropped to approximately 47,000 in 2005.
Of course the was a massive terrorist attack against the U.S. in 2001.
Quote:
Additionally, the audit found, the FBI identified 26 possible violations in its use of the national security letters, including failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records.
Of the violations, 22 were caused by FBI errors, while the other four were the result of mistakes made by the firms that received the letters.
I don't mean to minimize anything, but a certain number of always occur in audits like this. To know 26 was evidence anything more then "normal" you would have to look at audits from previous administrations.
Quote:
The FBI also used so-called "exigent letters," signed by officials at FBI headquarters who were not authorized to sign national security letters, to obtain information. In at least 700 cases, these exigent letters were sent to three telephone companies to get toll billing records and subscriber information.
"In many cases, there was no pending investigation associated with the request at the time the exigent letters were sent," the audit concluded.
Hypothetically, I would guess the reason that such a letter would be sent would be to gather leads.
Quote:
In a letter to Fine, Gonzales asked the inspector general to issue a follow-up audit in July on whether the FBI had followed recommendations to fix the problems.
"To say that I am concerned about what has been revealed in this report would be an enormous understatement," Gonzales said in remarks prepared for delivery to the privacy officials. "Failure to adequately protect information privacy is a failure to do our jobs."
Clearly the talk of a fascist official involved in a cover up. (/sarc) Look, I'm not saying that violations of the law are good things, they aren't. But I think this is being turned into something that is isn't.
(source link)
09 Mar 2007, 8:07 am
