FBI illegally obtained records on US citizens

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 on Mar. 9. 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. Fine also disclosed that the bureau had an unusual contract with three phone companies to provide call records and subscriber information without legal process. The revelations are a major embarrassment for the FBI, which had vowed to use its investigative powers carefully when Congress re-authorized the PATRIOT Act last year. National security letters do not require the approval of a judge, and have long been popular with law enforcement. The 2001 PATRIOT Act made them even easier to get in terrorism and espionage cases. The act also for the first time permitted FBI agents in the field to issue the letters; that authority had previously been reserved for officials at FBI headquarters. The inspector general's report found that the number of national security letter requests grew from 8,800 in 2000 to a peak of 56,000 in 2004. The total issued in the three-year period covered by Fine's review was 143,074. "The authority got decentralized, and what appears to have happened is that the FBI never built the proper processes for accountability and review at the field level," said Michael Woods, a former head of the FBI national-security law branch who once reviewed national security letter requests. Two influential senators expressed anger at the inspector general's disclosures and said they were considering tightening the PATRIOT Act regulations that allow the FBI to use the national security letters with such wide latitude. Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) also said they would call FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Roberto Gonzales to testify in the coming weeks to get more answers and determine how widespread the problem is. Leahy is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the Justice Department and the FBI, and Specter is its ranking Republican and former chairman. "The inspector general's report shows a massive misuse by the FBI of the national security letters for law enforcement," Specter said. "There'll be oversight hearings. And I think we may have to go further than that and change the law, to revise the PATRIOT Act and perhaps take away some of the authority which we've already given to the FBI, since they appear not to be able to know how to use it." The report found that the FBI had greatly underreported the number of problems with national security letters to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board. And it indicated that the violations the FBI did report were less serious than ones that Fine and his investigators uncovered independently. The FBI reported just 26 possible violations to the White House oversight board between 2003 and 2005, most of which were minor, such as "typographical errors," the report found. But the watchdog report indicated that hundreds, or even thousands, of potentially more serious violations went unreported. Fine said a review of 77 FBI case files in four field offices found that 17 of the files, or 22%, contained violations that had not been identified by the field office or reported to FBI headquarters as required. Among the violations of policies and procedures: A letter for telephone billing records was issued 22 days after the authorized period for the investigation had lapsed; full consumer credit reports were obtained during espionage investigations, even though the law says the information should only be available in international terrorism cases; educational records were improperly obtained from a North Carolina university; Unauthorized information about phone numbers was received in 10 cases because of transcription errors and other problems by phone company providers. Investigators also alleged that FBI headquarters circumvented the rules by obtaining billing records and subscriber information from three telephone companies on about 3,000 phone numbers without issuing national security letters at all. The law allows the FBI to obtain such records under "exigent" circumstances. But the report found that the bureau, with the support of the phone companies, was using the power in non-emergency situations. The records were supplied between 2003 and 2005. The report found even top FBI lawyers were unaware of the practice until the latter part of 2004. The report did not name the phone companies that received letters or cooperated with authorities by divulging call information. Sources said those companies probably were among the major long-distance carriers at the time–AT&T Corp., MCI Inc., Sprint Corp. or Qwest Communications International Inc. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said many of the problems were being fixed 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. 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. "This confirms some of our worst suspicions," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Romero scoffed at the notion that Gonzales could help turn around the problem. "This attorney general cannot be part of the solution," Romero said. "He is part of the problem." Romero said the PATRIOT Act, which Congress re-enacted a year ago after extensive debate, should be given another look, so the provisions on national security letters could be improved.