FBI handling of terror-related tips is flawed, report finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI must better handle tips and leads about people who may carry out violent acts, including assessing whether individuals with mental health problems pose legitimate threats to public safety, according to a Justice Department watchdog report released Wednesday.
The report from the inspector general's office identifies what it says are weakness and inconsistencies in how the FBI, across its 56 field offices, evaluates tips on subjects known as homegrown violent extremists. Those are people who are motivated by jihadist ideology and are operating in the U.S. independent of foreign terrorist organizations.
The report underscores the FBI's challenges in preventing violence from people whose actions and ideology may be disturbing without violating federal law. Those difficulties attracted fresh scrutiny in recent years after several people the FBI once investigated but did not arrest because they had not broken the law later went on to commit attacks, including the gunman in the 2016 nightclub rampage in Orlando, Florida.
The FBI in 2017 directed its field offices to study whether they had properly handled terrorism-related tips over the prior three years. That internal review found problems in the way the FBI had handled 6% of those threat assessments, but even after that review, not all field offices adequately followed up on the fumbled tips and leads, according to the inspector general's report.
https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-handling-terror-related-tips-170559086.html