FBI Could Lose Power for Abusing it

The New York Times , The Guardian and Washington Post Editorial

Republicans and Democrats both sternly warned the FBI today that it risks losing its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists because of its rampant abuses of the authority.

The warning came in the wake of Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, chief watchdog of the department, telling the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue national security letters, which resulted in illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners. He had revealed FBI abuses of power in his 130-page report last week.

"you probably won't have NSL authority", Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif. told FBI if it does not correct its practices. Another Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Wis. called the abuses "a gross overreach" and said, "I hope that this would be a lesson to the FBI that they can't get away with this and expect to maintain public support for the tools that they need to combat terrorism".

Fine called the problems inexcusable, serious and unacceptable and "the product of mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance, and lack of adequate oversight".

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called the abuses part of a disturbing pattern of misconduct at the Justice Department and "a serious breach of trust" because it "converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., asked Congress to revise the USA Patriot Act. He said, "We do not trust government always to be run by angels, especially not this administration".

Even the FBI general counsel admitted the problems were "a colossal failure on our part."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. said, "From the attorney general on down, you should be ashamed of yourself. We stretched to try to give you the tools necessary to make America safe, and it is very, very clear that you've abused that trust."

In his review, authorized by Congress over Bush administration objections, of headquarters files and just four of the FBI's 56 field offices, Fine found 48 violations of law or presidential directives from 2003 through 2005, including failure to get proper authorization, making improper requests and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records. Fine also found that the number of national security letters requested by the FBI skyrocketed after the Patriot Act became law.

For Fine "the most troubling aspect of this" were more than 700 cases in which FBI agents obtained telephone records through "exigent letters" which asserted that grand jury subpoenas had been requested for the data, when in fact such subpoenas never been sought.