FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data

[maddezmom]

Source: Washington Post

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



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061302453.html

[upi402]

1. phone ans internet companies turning over email etc -UNREQUESTED?

wtf?
:nuke:

[Lasher]

2. Well there's a nice euphemism for ya.

Robbing a bank = overstepped my withdrawal.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. K&R

[gratuitous]

4. Well, I don't think anyone could have predicted this!

Glorioski, who would have thought that the FBI would "overstep" its authority or that companies, trying to curry favor or deflect suspicion, would be a little too eager to compromise their customers' privacy?

Well, I'm sure none of the information was misused or anything. Right?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. There is a great reason why the telecom incumbents would do this:

Take AT&T for example: They wanted to reconstitute "Ma Bell", rebuild to a size commensurate to pre-breakup. They knew that to do so, they would have to curry favor with the maladministration. To do that, they just throw customer records and accesss to their network control points right on the table, even give things without being asked.

Bingo. Ma Bell. The customer privacy and constitutional rights is just a commodity. Something to be brokered in negotiations. The law be damned.

You can be sure that the maladministration also played funny with defense and government telecommunications contracts, and access to new ones. That's where no-bids are so effective. Easy and immediate rewards for "good behavior".

[sabra]

6. k & r

[BushOut06]

7. FBI May Have Broken the Law 1,000 Times in Surveilling Americans

Source: Wired

The FBI egregiously violated privacy laws and bureau rules to obtain telephone, e-mail and financial records on scores of Americans, according to an internal audit obtained by the Washington Post and reported today.

Although the audit only covers 10 percent of the FBI's national security investigations since 2002 -- raising the possibility of massive illegal behavior -- the results are chilling. Of the more than 1,000 violations revealed, around 700 involve telecoms or other communications companies, who glibly handed over information when presented with a National Security Letter by the FBI. The bureau improperly used NSLs to bypass the court approval that normally allows similar surveillance to take place.

Not that this bothered companies such as Verizon, AT&T and several ISPs. According to the Post, these companies not only turned over information the FBI was seeking but bonus material that no one had bothered to request.




Read more: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/fbi_may_have_br.html

[Double T]

8. Hopefully after bushitler is gone, the next administration can restore..........

the privacy rights of the citizens of this nation.

[kestrel91316]

9. I am thinking 1000 sounds quite low. Maybe 1000 times a day is

more accurate.