FBI Underreported Use of USA Patriot Act

[NNN0LHI]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NATIONAL_SECURITY_LETTERS?SITE=ILKAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI underreported how often it used the USA Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in suspected terrorism cases, according to a Justice Department audit.

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.

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.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. the erosion of our rights under this administration reminds one

of the old chinese water torture, drip by drip.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. K&R 'cause it's that important nt

[spanone]

3. How many times did we anticipate this shit???? Will it ever end? IMPEACH NOW

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

4. Is this revelation due to that whistle-blower guy who worked for,...

,...one of the major telecommunications company (I forget which,...believe it was Verizon)?

These allegations constitute like, a really horrific breach of our constitution. Will prosecutions ensue?

[kenny blankenship]

5. Not only have they "lost track" of how many times--they are abusing letters on a grand scale

they have also been misusing the National Security Letter device--thousands of times according to two audits http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802356.html">says the Washington Post.

A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI's use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.

The inspector general's audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations -- some of which were potential violations of law -- in a sampling of 293 "national security letters." The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases.

The report identified several instances in which the FBI used a tool known as "exigent letters" to obtain information urgently, promising that the requests would be covered later by grand jury subpoenas or national security letters. In several of those cases, the subpoenas were never sent, the review found.

The review also found several instances in which agents claimed there were exigent circumstances when none existed. The FBI recently ended the practice of using exigent letters in national security cases, officials said last night.

The numbers above are derive from a small and supposedly random sample. Since the FBI is generating these supposedly extraordinary search Letters at a rate of about 20,000 a year amounting to over 40,000 separate requests for information, the sampling method predicts that thousands of instances of abuse are occurring yearly.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

6. Um,...that is so disturbing!!!!

:scared: