Audit finds more FBI privacy abuses
WASHINGTON (AP) - March 13, 2008 "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.
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On the Net:
Justice Department IG: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig
