F.B.I. Is Warned Over Its Misuse of Data Collection
By SCOTT SHANE
New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 20 — House Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday in warning the F.B.I. that it could lose the power to demand that companies turn over customers’ telephone, e-mail and financial records if it did not swiftly correct abuses in the use of national security letters, the investigative tool that allows the bureau to make such demands without a judge’s approval.
The warnings came at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee into a recent report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine. The report found that the F.B.I. had repeatedly violated the rules governing the letters, sometimes by invoking emergency procedures to exercise them when there was no emergency, and had bungled record keeping so badly that the number of letters exercised was often understated when the bureau reported on them to Congress.
“I just want to convey to you how upset many of us are who have defended this program and have believed it is necessary to the protection of our country,” Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, told Valerie E. Caproni, the bureau’s general counsel.
If the handling of national security letters is not improved soon, added Mr. Lungren, a former California attorney general, the bureau will not “have to worry about improving your procedures for N.S.L.’s because you probably won’t have N.S.L. authority.”
Representative Darrell Issa, also a California Republican, said he was “shocked” by the bureau’s transgressions and suggested that they might have broken the law.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 20 — House Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday in warning the F.B.I. that it could lose the power to demand that companies turn over customers’ telephone, e-mail and financial records if it did not swiftly correct abuses in the use of national security letters, the investigative tool that allows the bureau to make such demands without a judge’s approval.
The warnings came at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee into a recent report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine. The report found that the F.B.I. had repeatedly violated the rules governing the letters, sometimes by invoking emergency procedures to exercise them when there was no emergency, and had bungled record keeping so badly that the number of letters exercised was often understated when the bureau reported on them to Congress.
“I just want to convey to you how upset many of us are who have defended this program and have believed it is necessary to the protection of our country,” Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, told Valerie E. Caproni, the bureau’s general counsel.
If the handling of national security letters is not improved soon, added Mr. Lungren, a former California attorney general, the bureau will not “have to worry about improving your procedures for N.S.L.’s because you probably won’t have N.S.L. authority.”
Representative Darrell Issa, also a California Republican, said he was “shocked” by the bureau’s transgressions and suggested that they might have broken the law.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Somewhat surprising to hear that a Wisconsin legislator was so upset about the FBI snooping. How many people would have guessed that that Wisconsinite was Russ Fiengold … wrong James Sensenbrenner .. a Conservative Republican was blasting the FBI on PBS News Hour.
But that is not the only change of heart by the conservative movement as Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, and other conservatives went to the National Press Club to announce the American Freedom Agenda. It entails “a legislative package to restore congressional oversight and habeas corpus, end torture and extraordinary rendition, narrow the president's authority to designate 'enemy combatants,' prevent unconstitutional wiretaps and mail openings, protect journalists from prosecution under the Espionage Act, and more"
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