FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data

you think your immune to this type of action. I would bet those that are involved thought they were also.

Source:

FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data

By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 14, 2007; A01

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the
law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about
domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent
years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in
March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security
investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic
surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials
said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much
smaller sampling.

The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which
telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail
records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect.
The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly
concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.

But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents'
requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have,
according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two
such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample.

FBI officials said the results confirmed what agency supervisors and
outside critics feared, namely that many agents did not understand or
follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when
collecting personal information with one of the most sensitive and
powerful intelligence-gathering tools of the post-Sept. 11 era -- the
National Security Letter, or NSL.

Such letters are uniformly secret and amount to nonnegotiable demands
for personal information -- demands that are not reviewed in advance by
a judge. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress substantially eased
the rules for issuing NSLs, requiring only that the bureau certify that
the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to
protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence
activities."

The change -- combined with national anxiety about another domestic
terrorist event -- led to an explosive growth in the use of the letters.
More than 19,000 such letters were issued in 2005 seeking 47,000 pieces
of information, mostly from telecommunications companies. But with this
growth came abuse of the newly relaxed rules, a circumstance first
revealed in the Justice Department's March report by Inspector General
Glenn A. Fine.

"The FBI's comprehensive audit of National Security Letter use across
all field offices has confirmed the inspector general's findings that we
had inadequate internal controls for use of an invaluable investigative
tool," FBI General Counsel Valerie E. Caproni said. "Our internal audit
examined a much larger sample than the inspector general's report last
March, but we found similar percentages of NSLs that had errors."

"Since March," Caproni added, "remedies addressing every aspect of the
problem have been implemented or are well on the way."

Of the more than 1,000 violations uncovered by the new audit, about 700
involved telephone companies and other communications firms providing
information that exceeded what the FBI's national security letters had
sought. But rather than destroying the unsolicited data, agents in some
instances issued new National Security Letters to ensure that they could
keep the mistakenly provided information. Officials cited as an example
the retention of an extra month's phone records, beyond the period
specified by the agents.

Case agents are now told that they must identify mistakenly produced
information and isolate it from investigative files. "Human errors will
inevitably occur with third parties, but we now have a clear plan with
clear lines of responsibility to ensure errant information that is
mistakenly produced will be caught as it is produced and before it is
added to any FBI database," Caproni said.

The FBI also found that in 14 investigations, counterintelligence agents
using NSLs improperly gathered full credit reports from financial
institutions, exercising authority provided by the USA Patriot Act but
meant to be applied only in counterterrorism cases. In response, the
bureau has distributed explicit instructions that "you can't gather full
credit reports in counterintelligence cases," a senior FBI official said.

In 10 additional investigations, FBI agents used NSLs to request other
information that the relevant laws did not allow them to obtain.
Officials said that, for example, agents might have requested header
information from e-mails -- such as the subject lines -- even though
NSLs are supposed to be used to gather information only about the
e-mails' senders and the recipients, not about their content.

The FBI audit also identified three dozen violations of rules requiring
that NSLs be approved by senior officials and used only in authorized
cases. In 10 instances, agents issued National Security Letters to
collect personal data without tying the requests to specific, active
investigations -- as the law requires -- either because, in each case,
an investigative file had not been opened yet or the authorization for
an investigation had expired without being renewed.

FBI officials said the audit found no evidence to date that any agent
knowingly or willingly violated the laws or that supervisors encouraged
such violations. The Justice Department's report estimated that agents
made errors about 4 percent of the time and that third parties made
mistakes about 3 percent of the time, they said. The FBI's audit, they
noted, found a slightly higher error rate for agents -- about 5 percent
-- and a substantially higher rate of third-party errors -- about 10
percent.

The officials said they are making widespread changes to ensure that the
problems do not recur. Those changes include implementing a
corporate-style, continuous, internal compliance program to review the
bureau's policies, procedures and training, to provide regular
monitoring of employees' work by supervisors in each office, and to
conduct frequent audits to track compliance across the bureau.

The bureau is also trying to establish for NSLs clear lines of
responsibility, which were lacking in the past, officials said. Agents
who open counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations have
been told that they are solely responsible for ensuring that they do not
receive data they are not entitled to have.

The FBI audit did not turn up new instances in which another
surveillance tool known as an Exigent Circumstance Letter had been
abused, officials said. In a finding that prompted particularly strong
concerns on Capitol Hill, the Justice Department had said such letters
-- which are similar to NSLs but are meant to be used only in security
emergencies -- had been invoked hundreds of times in "non-emergency
circumstances" to obtain detailed phone records, mostly without the
required links to active investigations.

Many of those letters were improperly dispatched by the bureau's
Communications Analysis Unit, a central clearinghouse for the analysis
of telephone records such as those gathered with the help of "exigent"
letters and National Security Letters. Justice Department and FBI
investigators are trying to determine if any FBI headquarters officials
should be held accountable or punished for those abuses, and have begun
advising agents of their due process rights during interviews.

The FBI audit will be completed in the coming weeks, and Congress will
be briefed on the results, officials said. FBI officials said each
potential violation will then be extensively reviewed by lawyers to
determine if it must be reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board, a
presidential panel of senior intelligence officials created to safeguard
civil liberties.

The officials said the final tally of violations that are serious enough
to be reported to the panel might be much less than the number turned up
by the audit, noting that only five of the 22 potential violations
identified by the Justice Department's inspector general this spring
were ultimately deemed to be reportable.

"We expect that percentage will hold or be similar when we get through
the hundreds of potential violations identified here," said a senior FBI
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the bureau's
findings have not yet been made public.

who do you chose

you part of the Republican party and you need to vote for a candidate that fits your ideology. Who do you pick??

If your a STAUNCH Constitutionalist then Ron Paul is the man
If your wishy washy in your ideology then the field is open
If your STAUNCH "conservative" then you should vote Fred Thompson RIGHT?? read on


http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=22186A54-3048-5C12-00450DBAD00A5BD1

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Fred_Thompson

Rivals try to deflate F. Thompson campaign
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
June 13, 2007 07:08 AM EST

Fred Thompson has had a relatively easy ride as he has flirted with a
bid for the Republican presidential nomination. His strategists have
found traction promoting him as the heir to Ronald Reagan -- and a
conservative alternative to the top tier of the GOP field.

But the ride is starting to get a bit bumpy.

Opponents and their researchers have begun working -- mostly behind the
scenes -- to highlight perceived soft spots in his conservative bona fides.

And Thompson will have to neutralize questions on the campaign trail and
in the media about his centrist votes in the Senate, his stances on
litmus test conservative issues including abortion and -- perhaps most
significantly -- his work as a lawyer and lobbyist.

Thompson's biggest challenge will likely be cementing his image as a
conservative country lawyer fixin' to shake up Washington -- before his
opponents brand him as an influence peddler and trial lawyer.

Here are the roles into which opponents will likely try to cast Thompson
and the ways in which he may seek to inoculate himself:

Tricky clientele

-- Lobbyist: Thompson made nearly $1.3 million over about two decades of
lobbying both before and after his eight-year Senate stint, according to
government documents and media accounts from his successful run for the
Senate in 1994.

Though Thompson won in a landslide, that was in a watershed Republican
year and before the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal helped Democrats
effectively wield the culture-of-corruption theme against Republicans.

Some of Thompson's clients could prove tricky to explain, from a British
reinsurance company facing billions of dollars in asbestos claims to
deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

If Thompson formally enters the race next month, as his aides have
signaled, his campaign will likely try to minimize his lobbying.

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo called the list "incredibly old news and
incredibly stale news" and stressed that lobbying was but a small part
of Thompson's legal practice.

"He had a law practice for over 30 years and he had about half a dozen
lobbying clients," Corallo said.

Trial lawyers are bogeymen?

-- Trial lawyer: Before Thompson won his Senate seat, published reports
said his private law practice handled personal injury cases and defended
people accused of white-collar crimes. And in the Senate, he opposed
some legislation intended to rein in escalating jury verdicts and
attorneys' fees.

Trial lawyers are bogeymen for some conservative groups, which consider
them Exhibit A for a legal system that rewards greed over industriousness.

But Thompson appears likely to tout the public service aspects of his
legal career, including stints as an assistant U.S. attorney and
Watergate congressional counsel, as well as a case in which he uncovered
a payoff scheme that landed a Tennessee governor in prison.

"This is a guy who was an incredibly accomplished attorney," Corallo said.

As for the Senate record, Corallo pointed out that Thompson supported
some tort reform measures.

He voted against others because he felt they infringed on states'
rights, Corallo said, asserting, "He was consistent in voting against
measures that provided the federal government powers that the federal
government shouldn't have. ... People understand that."

Backed McCain-Feingold

-- Campaign finance reformer: Thompson was among the leading Republican
backers of the sweeping package of campaign finance reforms commonly
known as McCain-Feingold.

Since it passed into law in 2002, conservative activists have derided it
as an infringement on their free speech and have held a grudge against
its GOP sponsor, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose presidential campaign
has struggled to win over conservatives.

Expect conservative groups and rivals to emphasize Thompson's support
for the bill, even calling it "McCain-Feingold-Thompson."

In recent months, Thompson has worked to give himself cover on the
issue, asserting that the law didn't work as intended and suggesting the
fairly drastic step of removing contribution limits entirely.

"The conservatives who have spoken with Fred have been satisfied with
his position as it stands," Corallo said, though he added campaign
finance should not "be at the top of the priority list when you're
talking about challenges America is facing."

Centrist or conservative?

-- Centrist senator: Though the influential American Conservative Union
scored Thompson's Senate career voting record at 86 percent, some of the
votes on which he strayed from the GOP fold could prove problematic for
ardent partisans.

For instance, he backed a 1998 bill that would have established a
temporary farm worker program and a 1996 bill to increase the minimum
wage. And he voted against one of the two impeachment charges brought
against President Clinton in 1999.

Thompson will defend each vote individually, Corallo said, but will
argue he approached all decisions from a conservative, federalist position.

As for immigration, Thompson has come out strongly against the pending
overhaul legislation, which McCain is spearheading.

On impeachment, Corallo said Thompson carefully studied the evidence
before splitting his votes, "and he stands by it."

Pro-choice?

-- Abortion-rights supporter: Every time Thompson got the chance in the
Senate, he voted with those who oppose abortion rights. But the social
conservatives for whom abortion is a litmus test scrutinize every bit of
a politician's record -- and Thompson's provides some fodder for
opponents to question the depth of his opposition to abortion rights.

On candidate surveys in 1994 and 1996, he answered that he favored
abortion always being legal in the first trimester of pregnancy and
opposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution "protecting the sanctity
of human life."

According to the Nashville Tennessean, Thompson included a handwritten
clarification with the latter response, reading, "I do not believe
abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts
and souls of the American people."

After Thompson again intimated, during a Fox News appearance this month,
that he'd oppose criminalizing abortion, conservative columnist Robert
Novak wrote that Thompson "came close to alarming his pro-life
constituency."

Thompson will point to support from leading anti-abortion groups to
neutralize this line of attack. He was endorsed by National Right to
Life in both of his Senate campaigns and has a 100 percent voting record
from the group, Corallo pointed out, asserting: "That's what counts. How
did he act?"

David Mark contributed to this report.