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Thursday, March 13, 2008; 3:49 PM

Report_FBI Misused Information-

Gathering Powers
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

The FBI continued to improperly obtain private telephone, e-mail and financial
records five years after it was granted expanded powers under the USA Patriot Act,
according to a report issued today.
In a review focusing on FBI investigations in 2006, Justice Department Inspector
General Glenn A. Fine found numerous privacy breaches by the bureau in its use of
national security letters, or NSLs, which allowed the FBI to obtain personal
information on tens of thousands of Americans and foreigners without approval from
a judge.
The findings mirror a report issued by Fine's office last year, which concluded that
the FBI had improperly used the letters to obtain telephone logs, banking records and
other personal data for three previous years, from 2003 to 2005.
The pattern persisted in 2006, Fine concluded in the report issued today, in part
because the FBI had not yet halted the shoddy recordkeeping, poor oversight and
other practices that contributed to the problems. He also said it was unclear whether
reforms enacted by the Justice Department and FBI last year will address all the
issues identified by his investigators.
"The FBI and Department of Justice have shown a commitment to addressing these
problems," Fine said in a statement. "However, several of the FBI's and the
Department's corrective measures are not yet fully implemented, and it is too early
to determine whether these measures will eliminate the problems with the use of
these authorities."
The findings reignited criticism today from Democrats and civil liberties groups, who
said the FBI's repeated misuse of its information-gathering powers underscores the
need for greater oversight by Congress and the courts to protect the constitutional
rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, drew a
comparison between the FBI's NSL abuses and the Bush administration's push to
enact a new surveillance law that would expand the government's ability to spy on
Americans without warrants. President Bush has threatened to veto a bill introduced
this week by House Democrats that would place more limits on surveillance
capabilities than the administration favors and would not give telecommunication
companies immunity from lawsuits for past aid they provided the government.
"At the same time the administration is trying to intimidate the Congress into giving
it additional spying power, we find out yet again that it has abused its authority to
pry into the lives of law abiding Americans," Conyers said in a statement.
Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement that Fine's report "should come as
no surprise" because it focused on a period prior to the time a host of procedural
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changes were introduced at the FBI, including creation of the Office of Integrity and
Compliance to oversee the use of security letters and other special powers.
"The Inspector General correctly emphasizes the need for sustained oversight of the
FBI's use of NSLs and concludes that the senior leadership of the Justice Department
and the FBI are committed to addressing these issues and continue to devote
significant energy, time, and resources to this effort," Boyd said.
According to Fine's report, the FBI continued to rely heavily on national security
letters in counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cybercrime investigations, issuing
nearly 50,000 of the documents in 2006 alone. Nearly 200,000 were issued from
2003 through 2006, the report said, and were used in a third of all FBI national
security probes during that time.
Fine said that FBI employees "self-reported" 84 possible violations of laws or
guidelines for the use of NSLs in 2006, which "was significantly higher than the
number of reported violations in prior years." But Fine noted that his office already
had begun its initial probe into NSLs by that time, which might have contributed to
the increase.
The violations that were reported by the FBI included issuing NSLs without correct
authorizations, the "over-collection" of telephone or Internet records and making
improper requests in the letters. About a quarter of the incidents were due to
mistakes by telephone or Internet providers, but many of those cases should have
been caught by the FBI earlier, Fine said.
Today's report did not address allegations related to other documents, including
"blanket NSLs" and exigency letters, that have been used by the FBI to gather vast
amounts of data without court oversight. Fine said he will issue a separate report on
those issues in coming months.