NYT: F.B.I. Found to Violate Its Informant Rules

[DeepModem Mom]

F.B.I. Found to Violate Its Informant Rules
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: September 13, 2005


WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has often violated internal guidelines in its handling of confidential informants, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded Monday.

In nearly 9 of every 10 cases reviewed by the inspector general, guidelines on the handling of confidential informants were violated in ways that risked compromising investigations, according to a 301-page report by the office of Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general at the Justice Department.

The guidelines sometimes permit informants like drug dealers or gang members to commit crimes to further an investigation. But F.B.I. agents sometimes allowed criminal informants to engage in criminal activities without getting needed approval from supervisors or lawyers for such operations, failed to report unauthorized illegal activity, or approved such illegal activity only retroactively, the review found.

Bureau supervisors were often unfamiliar with the rules that applied to the handling of confidential informants - a reflection, the inspector general's report said, of "inadequate training at every level." And when violations were found, bureau agents and supervisors were often not held accountable for missteps, the review found.

The F.B.I. considers the use of confidential informants, who often have criminal ties, to be critical to its ability to penetrate drug trafficking organizations, gangs, gambling operations and terrorist circles....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/13/politics/13fbi.html

[ret5hd]

1. hmmm...FBI "inadequate training at every level"...

is grover norquist et al trying to get the fbi privatized also?

[leveymg]

2. The report withheld the real bombshells: details of spying on anti-war

groups and illegalities in the handling of counter-terrorism operations.

Those, the FBI Inspector General's report says, will have to wait for another day. We get the drift, anyway.