Reuters: FBI disregarded secret court on private records

[seafan]

This MUST be grounds for immediate impeachment hearings. There's no other solution to Bush's tyranny.



FBI disregarded secret court on private records

By Randall Mikkelsen
Mar 13, 2008 7:30pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI twice disregarded a secret court's constitutional objections and obtained private records for national-security probes, a U.S. inspector reported on Thursday.

The Justice Department's Inspector General made the disclosure in reviews of the FBI's powers to obtain information such as phone records or credit-card data in terrorism probes or other security investigations.
"We questioned the appropriateness of the FBI's actions" in disregarding the court, the Inspector General's office said.
An influential Senate Democrat accused the FBI of "systemic failure" and the American Civil Liberties Union said the reviews demonstrated a need to check the agency's authority.
"The FBI has been given far too much surveillance power," Jameel Jaffer, national security director for the ACLU. "We believe that the abuse continues today."

.....

The disclosure comes as Congress considers legislation governing federal powers to conduct electronic surveillance of foreign terrorism targets.
The Inspector General's latest review follows a report last March that said the FBI had misused its powers to obtain business records with private data after its authority was expanded under legislation adopted after the September 11 attacks.
The Inspector General said the FBI in 2006 misused its authority by filing improper requests for records and collecting e-mail data without proper authorization. It said the FBI took significant steps to correct the problems after its report last year.

.....

The report took particular note of two occasions in which a secret court that oversees electronic surveillance rejected FBI requests to obtain records.
The court was concerned that doing so could interfere with rights protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech, religion and association and the right to petition the government.

After the rejections, the FBI used separate authority to get the information without the court's approval, relying on so-called National Security Letters -- even though that authority also had First Amendment guidelines.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the report "outlines more abuses and what appears to be the improper use of National Security Letters for years in a systemic failure throughout the FBI ... Legislative action may be necessary to correct these abuses."

The FBI said in a release that its authorizations to obtain business records were of "indispensable value."

.....

Oh, we are sure they were. To Bush. In illegally wiretapping and punishing his political enemies.




(Thanks to emptywheel at firedoglake for discovering this nugget of information.)

[seafan]

1. Kick. Very important. The FISA debate rages in the House right now. n/t

See this thread.

[L. Coyote]

2. K & R

[bobthedrummer]

3. The Pike Committee (active related thread started 3-11-2008)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2990965

[seafan]

4. Who were the targets in these two FBI requests that the secret count REJECTED??

Knowing who these two specific targets were/are will give us a tremendous piece of evidence about what Bush has done.


And WHEN, after being rejected by the secret court, did these two illegal FBI wiretaps occur??


Were they around the same time as March 10, 2004, when Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card barged into a critically ill John Ashcroft's hospital room, to demand that he sign off on a secret domestic wiretapping program, as James Comey stood by the bedside, as acting AG, our only remaining firewall against the illegality of what Bush sent his two minions over to demand that Ashcroft sign?



TIME, May. 17, 2007

When then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went to John Ashcroft's hospital room on the evening of March 10, 2004 to ask the ailing Attorney General to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program, he was acting inappropriately, Ashcroft's deputy at the time, James Comey, testified before Congress earlier this week. But the question some lawyers, national security experts and Congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally?

In dramatic testimony Tuesday, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he raced to the intensive care unit of George Washington University Hospital that evening to intercept Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card and prevent them from convincing Ashcroft to reauthorize the program after Justice Department lawyers had concluded that it was illegal.

.....

When will we get to the bottom of Bush's crimes against The People of the United States?

[OneBlueSky]

5. "This MUST be grounds for immediate impeachment hearings" . . .

over the past seven years, there have been innumerable grounds for immediate impeachment hearings -- all of which have been ignored by the Congress . . .

not holding the Executive accountable for its violations of the Constitution and of U.S. and international law implicitly allows future presidents to engage in the same kinds of activities with no fear of prosecution . . . that's pretty much a definition of tyranny, and it seems to be okay with our senators and representatives . . .